This book combines approaches from economics as well as business administration to stimulate scientific discourse and support decision-makers. The first part of the book examines the relationship between transport and economic growth, and specifically, whether "decoupling" of transport and economic growth appears possible. Previously unavailable regional data for Italy and Germany were collected and analyzed. The results indicate that transport makes an important contribution to economic growth.
In Strategic Coupling, Henry Wai-chung Yeung examines economic development and state-firm relations in East Asia, focusing in particular on South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. As a result of the massive changes of the last twenty-five years, new explanations must be found for the economic success and industrial transformation in the region. State-assisted startups and incubator firms in East Asia have become major players in the manufacture of products with a global reach: Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision has assembled more than 500 million iPhones, for instance, and South Korea’s Samsung provides the iPhone’s semiconductor chips and retina displays.Drawing on extensive interviews with top executives and senior government officials, Yeung argues that since the late 1980s, many East Asian firms have outgrown their home states, and are no longer dependent on state support; as a result the developmental state has lost much of its capacity to steer and direct industrialization. We cannot read the performance of national firms as a direct outcome of state action. Yeung calls for a thorough renovation of the still-dominant view that states are the primary engine of industrial transformation. He stresses action by national firms and traces various global production networks to incorporate both firm-specific activities and the international political economy. He identifies two sets of dynamics in these national-global articulations known as strategic coupling: coevolution in the confluence of state, firm, and global production networks, and the various strategies pursued by East Asian firms to attain competitive positions in the global marketplace.
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.
This book makes a major contribution to the debate and is directed at researchers, decision makers and students who are interested in the wider economic development impacts of transport.
In general, a reduction in trade barriers will affect the environment by expanding the scale of economic activity, by altering the composition of economic activity and by initiating a change in the techniques of production. We present empirical evidence to assess the relative magnitudes of these three effects as they apply to further trade liberalization in Mexico. We first use comparable measures of three air pollutants in a cross-section of urban areas located in 42 countries to study the relationship between air quality and economic growth. We find for two pollutants (sulphur dioxide and 'smoke') that concentrations increase with per capita GDP at low levels of national income, but decrease with GDP growth at higher levels of income. We then study the determinants of the industry pattern of US imports from Mexico and of value added by Mexico's maquiladora sector. We investigate whether the size of pollution abatement costs in US industry influences the pattern of international trade and investment. Finally, we use the results from a computable general equilibrium model to study the likely compositional effect of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on pollution in Mexico.
This book looks in detail at how globalisation has affected activity levels in maritime shipping, aviation, and road and rail freight, and assesses the impact that changes in activity levels have had on the environment.
This report explores technological possibilities and opportunities for developing and developed countries to accelerate decoupling and reap environmental and economic benefits of increased resource productivity. It examines policy options successful in helping different countries improve resource productivity in various sectors of their economy, avoiding negative impacts on the environment. It does not seem possible for a global economy based on the current unsustainable patterns of resource use to continue into the future. Economic consequences of these patterns are already apparent in increases in resource prices, increased price volatility and disruption of environmental systems. The environment impacts are also leading to potentially irreversible changes to the world's ecosystems, often with direct effects on people and the economy - for example: damage to health, water shortages, loss of fish stocks or increased storm damage. This report shows that much of the policy design 'know-how' needed to achieve decoupling is present in terms of legislation, incentive systems, and institutional reform. Many countries have tried these out with tangible results, encouraging others to study and where appropriate replicate and scale up such practices and successes
The Statistical Yearbook is an annual compilation of a wide range of international economic, social and environmental statistics on over 200 countries and areas, compiled from sources including UN agencies and other international, national and specialized organizations. The 2016 edition contains data available to the Statistics Division as of 31 July 2016 and presents them in 26 tables on topics such as: communication; crime; development assistance; education; energy; environment; finance; gender; international merchandise trade; international tourism; labor force; national accounts; population and migration; price and production indices; and science and technology. Most tables covering the period up to 2016. Accompanying the tables are technical notes providing brief descriptions of major statistical concepts, definitions and classifications.
This book focuses on the geo-economic and geopolitical impact of value chains transformation on the transport-logistic reintegration of continental Eurasian countries, with a specific focus on the members of the Eurasian Economic Union. The author assesses the potential impact of current trends (global value chains fragmentation and decoupling) on Eurasian transport integration. The book combines in-depth analysis of the evolution of value chains and transport-logistics corridors across Eurasia with a geopolitical assessment of its implications for the EAEU’s members’ foreign and economic policy orientation. The author explores three key arguments: (1) the key to a successful and sustainable integration of the transport space of continental Eurasia is less the ongoing expansion of transcontinental transit, and more the participation in intraregional and transregional cross-border value chains, even though this process is increasingly tied to the question of the geopolitical and geo-economic orientation of continental Eurasia; (2) even in a more regionalised world economy, the economic complementarities between continental Eurasia and the two manufacturing blocks at the edges of the supercontinent, Europe and Asia, represent the greatest chance for continental Eurasia for larger participation in high value-added value chains; and (3) without diversifying trade and financial ties across Asia and normalising relations with the EU, the combined effect of shifting value chains location across the continent and China’s ambiguous and flexible transport politics might turn an unprecedented chance into risk, augmenting competition among and within countries which are members of the EAEU over traffic volume, FDI, value chain participation, and ultimately geopolitical and geo-economic dividends. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of IR Theory, IPE, Geopolitics and Regional Studies, as well as the related subfields of transport geography, economic geography, and logistics.
Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.
