“金砖南非年”视角下的金砖机制建设评析

在当今世界变乱交织之际，金砖峰会在南非盛大召开，金砖机制实现历史性扩员。不断壮大的金砖队伍成为塑造国际格局的重要力量，必将深刻改变世界发展进程。“金砖南非年”非洲色彩浓厚，非洲利益和非洲议程在金砖机制中的位置更加凸显。金砖机制建设的横向拓展与纵向深化，不仅为世界和平与发展带来新机遇，而且为后疫情时代构建公平公正、有效均衡的全球治理新架构注入更多“金砖精神”和“金砖能量”。新形势下，金砖国家迫切需要在国际和地区热点问题解决、国际金融治理、文明交流互鉴、国际传播能力建设等领域深化交流合作。     

后金融危机时期金砖国家合作战略探析

2008年的国际金融危机催生金砖合作机制。但随着危机延续，国际社会共同应对危机的合作精神和政治氛围发生了重大变化，世界主要大国的对外经济政策出现明显分化，世界经济正步入后金融危机时期。尽管如此，金砖国家的务实合作正进一步彰显金砖机制的影响力，尤其是金砖国家第五次峰会关于成立金砖开发银行和外汇储备库的决定，将金砖国家的务实合作推向一个新阶段。本文认为，在后危机时期金砖国家的合作战略应包括以下四个方面：第一，正确定位金砖机制；第二，建立对话协商的软约束机制；第三，完善“以合作求发展、以发展促合作”的包容性合作机制；第四，推动金砖合作的网络化机制建设，实现金砖国家产业演进和可持续发展。中国也需要借助金砖平台，推动国际经济治理体系改革，探索南南合作的新模式，强化金砖国家作为广大发展中国家代表的作用，同时在金砖合作中积极倡导坚持求同存异、平等合作原则。     

创建金砖新评级机构的动因与困境

创建金砖新评级机构是金砖国家务实合作的一项重要倡议。穆迪、标普、惠誉等西方主导的三大评级机构在2008年国际金融危机和2010年欧洲主权债务危机中暴露出一系列缺陷,包括顺周期效应、收费模式存在利益冲突以及评级方法意识形态化等。针对这些缺陷,金砖国家在G20框架内积极推动国际评级体系改革,但三大评级机构改革进程十分缓慢。在此背景下,金砖国家开始探讨创建由其主导的新评级机构。然而,与金砖国家新开发银行等机构顺利落地不同,金砖新评级机构的建设一直进展不顺,其面临的主要困境是难以进入国际市场和获取可靠数据。这反映出西方在国际评级领域仍然享有结构性权力优势,因此寻求对西方三大评级机构进行国际制度制衡面临巨大障碍。创建金砖新评级机构的案例显示,金砖国家制度建设仍然需要坚持"循序渐进"的原则。     

冷眼向洋看世界——国际形势与中国外交

当下，几乎所有国家的政治家、国际政治专家都在关注世界格局和国际体系的深刻变化。在全球发展的时空坐标中，“金砖四国”、“展望五国”以及“新钻十一国”相继崛起，全球三分之二的人口与全球市场紧密相连，其余三分之一的人口也朝着这个方向努力。经济全球化悄然突破冷战时期狭隘的基础与空间，这个过程实际标志着20世纪90年代初冷战结束以来世界秩序的新变化。     

金砖国家合作的起源:一种理论解释

金砖国家是中国提倡增强发展中国家在全球治理中话语权和规范制定权力的重要平台。金砖国家合作起源的外生功能因素包括系统外部环境、国际体系权力结构和国际制度环境,外生规范因素有重复合作的报偿文化、完善公正国际规范的意愿;内生功能因素为行为体数目、互补性和国内政治,内生规范因素则是同质性的认知和内生共识。金砖国家对保持报偿结构的判断和对未来影响的认知是将上述影响变量联系起来的两组机制。金砖国家的合作起源于其政治经济崛起的背景和国际制度的非中性,金砖国家间政治和经济相互依存逐渐增长,国际地位和利益追求的共识超越了国家间同质性差异,进而产生联盟组织的信任,推动金砖国家组织的制度化和机制化发展。     

“福塔莱萨峰会”后金砖国家合作面临的机遇与挑战

<正>当前,国际政治经济格局正在经历新一轮的大分化和大调整。一方面,以金砖国家为代表的发展中国家和新兴经济体在国际社会中的话语权不断提升,推动着世界经济增长多元化和国际关系民主化,成为国际新秩序的积极建设者。传统的国际权力格局正在加速转变。"金砖威胁论"已成为西方学者"对抗"这一转变趋势     

世界变局中的中国国际战略

回顾2011年的世界大势，似乎可以用一个“变”字概括。从年初的所谓“阿拉伯一北非之春”，到“印度之夏”、“华盛顿之秋”，再到所谓“莫斯科之冬”，国际政治格局在变；美国经济挣扎复苏，欧债危机深重，金砖国家未雨绸缪，世界经济格局调整；亚太和东亚国际关系也在酝酿重整；中美关系面临重新定位……那么，应当如何评估世界变局，如何观察在此变局之下的中国国际战略走向呢？     

世界经济格局调整与金砖国家利益融合

当今世界正处于百年未有之大变局,世界经济正在进入一个格局深化调整和经济治理规则改革升级的新阶段,主要表现为世界经济增速放缓、多边贸易治理体系改革压力上升、全球金融格局多元化发展、国际投资分化趋势明显以及数字经济竞争加剧等。上述调整对于金砖合作而言既是挑战,也是契机。着眼于第二个"金色十年",金砖机制应优先重视加强合作和利益融合,如推动国际货币基金组织份额改革和世贸组织改革,切实提升金砖国家在全球治理中的制度性话语权;营造一流的金砖国家营商环境,构建开放型世界经济体系,拓展金砖国家利益融合空间;强化政治互信,为金砖国家利益融合加强顶层设计和提供政治保障。     

新兴国家视角下的金砖国家与全球经济治理体系变革

<正>新兴国家崛起与金砖国家合作机制的建立一、新兴国家经济的群体性崛起冷战后尤其是新世纪以来,新兴国家的经济取得了突出表现,并因此成为世界瞩目的焦点。在经济增长方面,2000—2013年期间,新兴市场与发展中国家平均增长率为6.1%,其中金砖国家平均增长率为6.9%,分     

金砖国家近期经济形势及政策协调

当前,世界经济避免重蹈20世纪30年代＂大萧条＂覆辙,主要原因是金砖国家等新兴经济以V型强劲反弹,成为引领全球经济复苏的生力军。后危机时代,金砖国家等新兴市场发展依然鹤立鸡群,新兴大国群体性崛起,推动力量格局向东转移,促进世界经济发展更趋多元。     

One in 20: the G20, middle powers and global governance reform

There is a growing consensus that the international system needs to be reformed to reflect the changing distribution of power with the rise of the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs). The Group of Twenty (G20) has been at the centre of these discussions. Within the G20, emphasis has been on great powers or rising powers and their capacity to drive reform. Less attention has been given to the preferences and strategies of middle powers in the G20 and their capacity to shape global governance reform. Drawing on interviews with G20 officials, this paper considers the role of Australia as president of the G20 in 2014. Australia’s presidency presents a unique opportunity to examine the behaviour of a middle power as it balances the competing global governance claims of the USA and the BRICs.     

Immigration: perspectives from receiving countries

The author examines the issue of international migration from the standpoint of receiving countries. He attempts "to understand how and why migrant-receiving countries respond as they do, and to suggest some of the new issues in international migration that arise in a world in which the supply of would-be migrants and refugees is now greater than receiving countries are willing to accept."     

The Challenges for Developing Countries in International Tax Justice

Developing countries face three main challenges in international tax cooperation. The most widely known are the twin problems of tax avoidance by foreign investors and tax evasion by domestic actors, which have become a major focus of debate in international organisations and of civil society activism in recent years. The second problem, tax competition, incorporates a range of issues from the ‘prisoners’ dilemma’ facing countries competing for inward direct investment through to the harmful tax rules used by tax havens that enable tax avoidance and evasion. This article reviews four recent monographs that analyse these problems at an international level. While they contain much useful discussion of the problems and potential technical solutions, there remains a need for political economy research to understand why certain technical solutions have not been adopted by governments. A third challenge faced by developing countries, barely considered in the tax and development literature up to now, leads to a note of caution: international tax institutions tend to be designed in ways that place disproportionate restrictions on capital-importing countries’ ability to tax foreign investors.     

Determinants of use of special drawing rights by developing nations

The paper examines the determinants of use of Special Drawing Rights by developing countries. Simple behavioural models are presented and estimated to explain the use of SDRs and the role of SDRs in the reserve portfolios of less developed countries. While the results are far from conclusive, they provide some understanding of the role of the newest international reserve asset in the international financial decisions of less developed countries.     

Do Migrants Transfer Productive Knowledge Back to Their Origin Countries?

This paper analyses whether international migrants contribute to increasing technological advances in developing countries by inducing a transfer of productive knowledge from developed countries back to migrants’ home countries. Using the Economic Complexity Index as a proxy for the amount of productive knowledge embedded in each countries and bilateral migrant stocks of 20 OECD destination countries, we show that international migration is a strong channel of technological transmission. Diasporas foster the local adoption of new technologies by connecting high technology countries with low ones, reducing the uncertainty surrounding their profitability. Our empirical results support the hypothesis that technological transfers are more likely to occur out of more technologically advanced destinations and when emigration rates are particularly high.     

Savings,investment and foreign capital flows: Have capital markets become more integrated?

How mobile is capital across countries? Does the expansion of world financial markets in the 1970s and 1980s reflect a tendency towards one integrated world capital market, accessible for both industrialised and developing countries? Or, alternatively, are savings and investment rates for each economy closely tied because of international capital market imperfections? This article critically assesses recent studies that have tested these hypotheses empirically for industrialised countries, presents new evidence and expands data analysis to include the group of developing countries. Contrary to recent studies it is concluded that across industrialised countries domestic investment and savings are now much less closely linked than in the 1960s. But the larger capital market integration does not extend to the group of developing countries despite their increased use of funds from international financial markets to finance domestic investment. The exploratory nature of the data analysis only permits to draw some suggestive, though important, conclusions for economic theory and policy.     

International tourism and export instability

Export diversification has been suggested as a strategy for decreasing the level of export earnings instability which is experienced by many developing countries. In recent years the international tourism sector has made an increasingly important contribution to the economies of many low income countries. This article examines whether diversification into the non‐traditional tourism sector has succeeded in decreasing the instability of export earnings. It was found that although tourism has the advantage of high growth rates and is a major source of foreign currency receipts, earnings from international tourism did not bring about a significant decrease in the instability of export earnings of most of the developing and industrialised countries considered. Furthermore, a net increase in the instability of earnings from tourism and merchandise exports occurred in a number of countries, and may be a particular problem in small, open developing economies.     

Food Price Transmission and Economic Development

In this paper we challenge the conventional wisdom that the world’s poorest countries are also the most vulnerable to spikes in international food prices. We derive an inverted U-shaped relationship between food price transmission and the development level of a country from a theoretical model. This prediction is subsequently tested in two sets of regressions where economic development is approximated by per capita income and where we control for a number of other potential determinants of food price transmission. The first set of regressions is based on estimated transmission elasticities and the second on actual domestic food price changes during spikes in international food prices. In both sets of regressions we find strong evidence of the existence of an inverted U-shaped relation between food price transmission and income. Thus, food prices in middle income (rather than in low income) countries respond the strongest to changes in international food prices, implying that the poor in these countries are the most exposed to spikes in food prices. We also show that the factors explaining the variation in the estimated transmission elasticities can explain the variation in domestic food price changes during spikes in international food prices equally well.     

Patents and pills,power and procedure: The North-South politics of public health in the WTO

Developing countries have limited control over the distributional and substantive dimensions of international institutions, but they retain an important stake in a rule-based international order that can reduce uncertainty and stabilize expectations. Because international institutions can provide small states with a potential mechanism to bind more powerful states to mutually recognized rules, developing countries may seek to strengthen the procedural dimensions of multilateral institutions. Clear and strong multilateral rules cannot substitute for weakness, but they can help ameliorate some of the vulnerability that is a product of developing countries’ position in the international system. This article uses the contemporary international politics of intellectual property rights (IPRs) as a lens to examine North-South conflicts over international economic governance and the possibilities of institutional reform. Lacking the power to revise the substance of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), developing countries, allied with a network of international public health activists, subsequently designed strategies to operate within the constraining international political reality they faced. They sought to clarify the rules of international patent law, to affirm the rights established during the TRIPS negotiations, and to minimize vulnerability to opportunism by powerful states. In doing so the developing countries reinforced global governance in IPRs. Ken Shadlen is lecturer in development studies at the London School of Economics. He is the author ofDemocratization without Representation: The Politics of Small Industry in Mexico (Penn State University Press, 2004). His work on the politics of intellectual property has appeared inWorld Economy, and is forthcoming inInternational Studies Quarterly, Journal of International Development, andReview of International Political Economy. In preparing this paper I have benefited from discussions of the material with a number of people, including Tom Callaghy, Meghnad Desai, Tim Dyson, Christopher Garrison, Marcus Kurtz, Susan Martin, Christopher May, Monique Mrazek, Andrew Schrank, and Robert Wade. I also wish to thank the journal’s reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. Financial support was provided by STICERD, LSE.     

Illegal Economic and Transit Migration in the Czech Republic: A Study of Individual Migrants' Behaviour

This article examines the essential features of international migration and the illegal working activities of migrants in the Czech Republic, with a closer insight into the processes of trafficking and smuggling. The research is based on semi-structured interviews with 63 illegal migrants, both from countries of the former Soviet Union (mainly Ukraine) and developing countries in 2005 and 2006. The main conclusion of the analysis is that, in many ways, the situation of illegal labour and transit migration in the Czech Republic is similar to that in countries with a longer experience as target countries for immigration.