ACE8058: 7.  Globalisation & Trade

[David Harvey, Room 4.20, Agric. Bldg. - with links to MKT3000 - Globalisation: Patterns, Processes & Challenges]

Friday April 26th and May 3rd, 2013, Stephenson Building, T1, (3.02) - 1400 - 1600/

  1. What is Globalisation?

  2. When did it start?

  3. What's different now?

  4. Major Data and Reference Sources.

  5. Trade: its meanings, interpretations and implications.

  6. Food Security, Globalisation & Food Markets.

1. What is Globalisation?

"“GLOBALISATION” is a relatively recent term. A search in the archives of this newspaper, perhaps the one most closely associated with globalisation, shows the word first used in 1961 in an article on the need for economic reform in Spain. Only in the 1980s did the term get the meaning it now has, when Theodore Levitt, a Harvard academic, used it to refer to the spread of corporations around the world. By the end of the decade, with the Berlin Wall in pieces, the number of articles (and letters to the editor) mentioning globalisation surged. Protests in Seattle in 1999 and in Genoa two years later encouraged more uses of the term, as did global trade negotiations in 2006. But with the current recession, the term is somewhat out of fashion." (Economist on-line, Nov. 5th, 2009)

Globalisation mentions, Economist

The Economist  (July, 2009) has a prosaic and practical conception of the term: "the more or less simultaneous marketing and sale of identical goods and services around the world. ...The statistic that perhaps best reflects the growth of globalisation is the value of cross-border world trade expressed as a percentage of total global GDP: it was around 15% in 1990, is some 20% today and is expected by McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm, to rise to 30% by 2015. ...Globalisation “is the freer movement of goods, services, ideas and people around the world” ...A former chief executive of Coca-Cola admitted that the company had once upon a time changed its globalisation strategy. “We used to be an American company with a large international business,” he said. “Now we’re a large international company with a sizeable American business.”".

Academics and Social Scientists have a different and more conceptual view: 
Manfred B, Stenger:  Globalisation - a very short introduction, Oxford, 2009.  "Globalisation is not a single process, but a set of processes that operate simultaneously and unevenly on several levels and in various dimensions" (p 36). He suggests that there are five major strands to the phenomenon/process:  economic, political, cultural, environmental, ideological;  and offers the follwing definition: "Globalisation refers to the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and world-space. (p15). [Note - Stenger apparently discounts or subsumes the influence of 'technology']

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an extensive discussion of Globalisation definitions and ideas – (note the ‘David Harvey’ cited here is NOT me). "most contemporary social theorists endorse the view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which the significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in the face of a no less dramatic acceleration in the temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity. Geographical distance is typically measured in time. As the time necessary to connect distinct geographical locations is reduced, distance or space undergoes compression or “annihilation.” The human experience of space is intimately connected to the temporal structure of those activities by means of which we experience space. Changes in the temporality of human activity inevitably generate altered experiences of space or territory. Theorists of globalization disagree about the precise sources of recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of human life. Nonetheless, they generally agree that alterations in humanity's experiences of space and time are working to undermine the importance of local and even national boundaries in many arenas of human endeavor. "

You could also try the Globalisation Web Site - for a Sociological perspective;
or Global Transformations, by David Held and Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton, which is well organised and has the major links. This site "serves to support and extend the resources of those who use the Global Transformations books series. The series comprises four books:
    * Global Transformations,  on the changing nature and shape of globalization over time. (Robinson Books Level 3 (327 GLO )
    * The Global Transformations Reader, which offers a comprehensive set of texts on the great globalization debate – texts which are representative of all the major points of view and research traditions on this topic (Robinson Books Level 3 (303.482 GLO )
    * Governing Globalization, which explores how globalization is governed, the problems of governance and what can be done about these. (Robinson Books Level 3 (341.2 GOV )
    * Globalization Theory, which aims to extend our understanding of how globalization can best be examined and explained."

The Levin Institute - State University of New York, has a comprehensive Globalisation 101 site, and defines Globalisation as "Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment  and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world." There is a wealth of basic information and explanation on this page.

See also, Smith, M. K. and Doyle M. (2002) 'Globalization', The encyclopedia of informal education (infed) which, itself, is often a useful port-of-call for ideas and synopses of major ideas and issues, though can become out-of-date rather quickly - much like the rest of the world!


2. When did it actually start?

The brief historical time line in the previous notes suggests a possible story about the processes of human and social evolution - the underpinnings of globalisation (whatever we mean by the term):
1939 – 45: World War II. 50-70m killed, of whom, 20-25m military.

1944: POST WAR 'CONCENSUS':   Bretton Woods: International ‘summit’ meeting - Establishment of the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - IBRD) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) as major arms of world governance, and the foundation of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, signed in 1947), as the intended companion of the Internatinal Trade Organisation (ITO), eventually to become the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995, to complement the United Nations (1945 - see here for a brief history, and here for a brief outline of the organisation and its agencies).

1945: - Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed with US (allied) atomic bombs. WWII ends, and the nuclear age begins.
1945:    United Nations Charter  comes into force (24th October), this day has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948.
 
1946: Cold War begins as the Iron Curtain descends across Europe from Stechin (Stettin) on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic.
[See, also, the changing map of Europe: 1519-2009]

1947: IMF begins operations.
1947: GATT signed, eventually to become the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995.

1961: The Berlin Wall is erected.

1962: Cuban Missile Crisis - timeline

1971: UK, Ireland and Denmark join the European Union.
1971:  Collapse of the Bretton Woods Fixed exchange rate system - and the beginning of 'floating' exchange rates (and, as a result, of the importance of inflation and the primacy of Monetary policy.

1972: The Great Grain Robbery - USSR buys 440m. bu. wheat (15m tonnes, c.f. 'normal' years' purchases of 300 - 400k tonnes) from the US, greatly exceeding forecasts of their imports, and leading to major commodity price spikes - wheat prices tripled by the end of 1973, corn and soybean prices more than doubled, and wholesale food prices climbed 29%.

1973: OPEC embargoes oil exports to the US in response to the Yom Kippur war and the US support of Israel. US oil prices rose almost 4 fold. "on October 17, OPEC struck back against the West by imposing an oil embargo on the U.S., while increasing prices by 70% to America's Western European allies. Overnight, the price of a barrel of oil to these nations rose from $3 to $5.11. In January 1974, they raised it further to $11.65."

[These 3 events - the floating (depreciating) $; Food Commodity Price Spike; OPEC's oil price spike - led to fears of Malthusian catastrophe and also to rapid monetary expansion (especially in the UK and US) to avoid raw material price driven recession -> double digit inflation (25% in the UK for almost 2 years). See UNCTAD stats for commodity price index history (nominal terms). It practically coincided with the Club of Rome's publication of the Limits to Growth report (1972)

1988:  The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the UN’s World Meterological Organisation and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which has three working groups and one task force, as the world begins to recognise the possible dangers of climate change.
 
9/11/1989:  Collapse of the Berlin wall, following Gorbchev's "Perestroika" (restructuring) and "glasnost" (openness)

1991:  Iraq invades Kuwait, and the first Iraq war (Desert Storm) results, driving Iraq out of Kuwait.

1995: World Trade Organisation (WTO) formed - see, also, a companion site (GATT.org.)

1999: 30,000 demonstrators disrupt the WTO summit in Seattle

2001:  China joins the World Trade Organisation.
  
9/11/2001:  al-Qaeda coordinated attacks on Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, New York and the Pentagon, Washington using hijacked airliners, killing almost 3,000 people, including 19 hijackers, leading to war in Afghanistan to 'destroy' Osama bin Laden's base - in this case the Wikipedia entry is about as good as any other.

March, 2003: The 2nd Iraq War

7/7/2005:  London subject to 4 suicide bombings, killing 52 and injuring 700, in an apparent response by British Islamic fundamentalists against the Iraq war. on 21 July, another bombing attempt failed.

2006 – 2008:  World Commodity Price Spikes. (Wikipedia, in this case, is a good summary site - though the World Bank, FAO and OECD and IFPRI are also relevant).

April, 2007: New Century Financial, which specialises in sub-prime mortgages, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and cuts half of its workforce.
August 2007: French bank BNP Paribas suspends three investment funds with exposure to US sub-prime mortgage stocks
September 2007: Northern Rock suffers a run (the first on a British bank for ?? years), and is forced into public ownership.

15/9/2008:  Lehman Brothers bankruptcy  – the final ‘trigger’ for the Credit Crunch.

August 2012: Russia joins WTO, following 19 years of tortuous negotiations.

What next??  To see where we have come over the last 200 years - see Gapminder World.
See, also:  WorldMapper (wealth) (also, communications) - though data now somewhat out of date.

3. What's different now?

  1. For a snapshot of what has happened to GDP.hd. over the last 1/2 century, see Economist, 17/4/13), and more recent performance of global economy here, or, for a different perspective, the UNDP's Human Development Index (summarised by the Economist, March 2013)
  2. The world is pretty full -(historical atlas of the 20th C) Or, see here. or CEISIN - SEDAC: Socio-economic Data and Applications Centre. There is virtually no 'new territory' for expansion - No more scope for such major migrations as happened between 1850 and 1914, when a million people a year  emigrated to the new world from Europe. - WORLD POPULATION GROWTH (Bn.) - what is wrong with this picture?
World Population Growth (billions)

3.    There is no away to throw to - we run the risk of being buried or drowning in our own refuse, and of seriously altering our climate (probably for the worse).


4.    Natural Resources are finite - as we consume more non-renewable resources (oil, coal, gas and minerals) so further use will become more expensive, or see here or here or here for more of the debate, or here, for an update on 'peak oil' (Economist, 5th March, 2013) - and here for a Chatham House Report (2012) on Resources Futures (and its associated graphics).

5.    Climate Change is happening, and will get more extreme until or unless we do something about it (See Economist, 30/3/13; and also companion notes)

6.     Technology is different, more capable and quicker - so mistakes are (perhaps) more likely and bigger, and villainy has more scope.

7.     And, we should all be smarter - learning from history and standing on the shoulders of giants.
8.     But:  (Growing Inequality?) -> social collapse? or inevitable consequence of capitalism? or a passing phase? or our own fault, and we can cure it if we want to?

4. Reference Sources

IMF - Global economic data, including commodity price indices, and a visualisation- data mapper.
  • World GDP/capita in ppp terms, (IMF Data Mapper) 1980 - 2010 + forcasts to 2015, showing an apparently increasing divergence between the 'advanced' and 'emerging and developing' economies - note the capacity to alter the countries and the scales of these graphs, and also the plots. Is Germany richer in terms of GDP/hd than the UK? Was it? How come?
WTO:  statistical information on:
  • Trade Profiles provide predefined information leaflets on the trade situation of members, observers and other selected economies;
  • Tariff Profiles provide information on the market access situation of members, observers and other selected economies;
  • Services Profiles provide detailed statistics on key infrastructure services (transportation, telecommunications, finance and insurance) for selected economies;
  • Time Series section allows an interactive data retrieval of international trade statistics.
OECD - basic data for each and all OECD countries (not for emerging or developing countries).
See, especially,  Perspectives on Global Development 2010:  Shifting Wealth: the first edition of Perspectives on Global Development, a new publication from the OECD Development Centre: "Shifting Wealth examines the changing dynamics of the global economy over the last 20 years, and in particular the impact of the economic rise of large developing countries, such as China and India, on the poor. It details new patterns in assets and flows within the global economy and highlights the strengthening of “South-South” links – the increasing interactions between developing countries through trade, aid and foreign direct investment.  What do these changes imply for development and development policy? The report explores potential policy responses at both national and international levels. Nationally, developing countries' need to re-position their development strategies to capitalise on the increasing potential of South-South co-operation and to fully benefit from new macroeconomic drivers. Internationally, the global governance architecture needs to adjust to better reflect current economic weights." [You can browse this volume, in read only form, from the OECD web site].  Some Highlights:
  • Non OECD countries (developing countries) are projected to win a majority share of Global GDP within the next 5 years (p24, Fig 0.6)
  • More countries now (in the 'noughties') converging with the affluent, and fewer are struggling or remain poor cf. the 1990s (p 34, Figs. 1.5 & 1.6) - note that Brazil still labled here as 'struggling', but see Appendix.
  • per capital GDP growth rates (% terms)) converging over the 2000s decade, after diverging during the 90s. (page 38, Fig 1.7) - the 90s a 'lost/disappointing' decade.
  • public (government) debt as % of GDP climbing since 1990 in advanced economies, and both lower and falling in developing and emerging countries (p62, fig 2.8)
  • Poverty rates (% popn. on <$1.25/day) falling in developing world (even excluding China), from >40% in 1990 to <30% in 2005 (p99, Fig, 4.1)
  • Strong relationship between declining poverty rates and economic growth (p 99, Fig. 4.2) BUT with much 'unexplained' variation.

World Bank:  a vast amount of data by country, including 420 indicators from the World Development Indicators (WDI) covering 209 countries from 1960 to 2008, which can be displayed as tables, maps or graphs, under the headings:
Agriculture & Rural Development; Infrastructure; Aid Effectiveness; Labor & Social Protection; Economic Policy and External Debt; Poverty; Education; Private Sector; Energy & Mining; Public Sector; Environment; Science & Technology; Financial sector; Social Development; Health; Urban Development.
The World Bank Group comprises five somewhat seperate but closely associated agencies: the IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), 1944 - serving 'middle-income' countries with investment and advice; the IDA (International Development Association), 1960 - concentrating on the world's poorest countries; the International Finance Corporation (IFC), 1956, providing investments and advisory services to build the private sector in developing countries (with a timeline showing some of the development of the Bank); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), 1988, which promotes foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing countries to help support economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve people's lives, by providing political risk insurance (guarantees) to the private sector; the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), 1966, which does what it says on the tin.

WB's Annual World Development Reports  "Published annually since 1978, the World Development Report has long been an influential publication and an essential reference on the world economy and the state of economic and social development. Each year's report focuses on a specific topic in development such as labor, infrastructure, the role of the state, transitional economies, health, the environment, agriculture, or poverty."
World Development Report, 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography:
Abstract: "Places do well when they promote transformations along the dimensions of economic geography: higher densities as cities grow; shorter distances as workers and businesses migrate closer to density; and fewer divisions as nations lower their economic borders and enter world markets to take advantage of scale and trade in specialized products. World Development Report 2009 concludes that the transformations along these three dimensions—density, distance, and division—are essential for development and should be encouraged.The conclusion is controversial. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. A billion people live in lagging areas of developing nations, remote from globalization’s many benefi ts. And poverty and high mortality persist among the world’s “bottom billion,” trapped without access to global markets, even as others grow more prosperous and live ever longer lives. Concern for these three intersecting billions often comes with the prescription that growth must be spatially balanced.This report has a different message: economic growth will be unbalanced. To try to spread it out is to discourage it—to fi ght prosperity, not poverty. But development can still be inclusive, even for people who start their lives distant from dense economic activity. For growth to be rapid and shared, governments must promote economic integration, the pivotal concept, as this report argues, in the policy debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration. Instead, all three debates overemphasize place-based interventions.Reshaping Economic Geography reframes these debates to include all the instruments of integration—spatially blind institutions, spatially connective infrastructure, and spatially targeted interventions. By calibrating the blend of these instruments, today’s developers can reshape their economic geography. If they do this well, their growth will still be unbalanced, but their development will be inclusive."
World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change;  2011 - Jobs.
See, also, a 2010 World Bank report on Changing the Industrial Geography in Asia: The Impact of India and China, by Ysuf & Nabeshima,  available to browse at this site.
And, finally, IFC's Doing Business Economy Rankings, "Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business, from 1 – 183. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. This index averages the country's percentile rankings on 9 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic. The rankings are from the Doing Business 2011 report, covering the period June 2009 through May 2010."

United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), (whose site notes that 20.10.2010 is World Statistics Day) has major collections of data on economic, social and development conditions world-wide. Especially important are the Millenium Development Goals data ("This site presents the official data, definitions, methodologies and sources for more than 60 indicators to measure progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. You will also find the official progress reports and documents produced by IAEG. Links to related sites and documents and constantly updated news will keep you up to date with the ongoing activities on MDG monitoring.").  This site also includes MDGInfo 2010 online
See also: Vandemoortele, 2009, "The MDG Conundrum: Meeting the Targets Without Missing the Point", Development Policy Review, 27, 4, November, 355 - 371.

UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Population Division: World Population Prospects: 2009 revision.
See, also, the UN Human Development Reports and Human Development Index (for what the HDI measures, see the Compsite Indices page) and Interactive map of migration data.
UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (UNEP) - and the related site:  GRID ARENDAL, "Environmental Knowledge for Change", for detailed maps, graphics and data. "Established  in 1989  by the Government of Norway as a Norwegian Foundation, our mission is to communicate environmental information to policy-makers and facilitate environmental decision-making for change." Especially informative are the Global Maps and Graphics. - e.g. World Greenhouse Gas Emissions by sector, and by country, and population by income level.
See, also, the complete United Nations 'family' for links to other parts of the organisation,

United Nations World Food Programme. See, e.g. World Hunger Map

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) for comprehensive data on food supply, food balance sheets, food security, resources (land and water etc.).

See if you can discover what has happened to GDP (real terms) per unit of energy use
(i.e. the efficiency of energy use) for the major players: 
Canada, China, Russia, India, Brazil, US, Germany, UK, Australia, Nigeria, South Africa.
What do you conclude?

See, also, an excellent interactive data source for a new Multidimensional Poverty Index, developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) in conjunction with the UNDP.

UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, especially their Foreign Direct Investment Database (FDI), which presents aggregate inflows, outflows, inward stocks and outward stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI) for 196 reporting economies in an interactive format. Also produces the World Investment Report (WIR). Detailed statistics on foreign direct investment (FDI) and operations of transnational corporations (TNCs) in selected countries are available at the World Investment Directory on-line, which includes country fact sheets and profiles.

International Labour Organisation: one of whom's major themes is Globalisation (alongside Sustainability, Poverty, Gender and Aid) - see, especially, their database of labour statistics, including international labour migration stats (which tend to be incomplete).

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (part of the CGIAR network) for major international food issues and data, including the 2010 Global Hunger Index.

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT INFORMATION SITES:

World Public Opinion: "The WorldPublicOpinion.org website provides information and analysis about public opinion on international policy issues from around the world. While the studies of the WorldPublicOpinion.org network figure prominently, the website draws together data from a wide variety of sources from around the world. We have found that data from all reliable sources are important contributions and that as more studies are integrated into analyses, world public opinion comes into increasing focus."  See, for example, their recent report of a BBC poll on what opinion is on free market capitalism.

UNU-Wider:   United Nations University, World Institute for Development Research, which also has the World Income Inequality Database. Country information sheets provide information about the sources and the surveys used as far as documentation was available. Country information sheets are only available in pdf format. The dataset is downloadable as an xl file.

World Economic Forum: (the organisor of the annual Davos Conference), produces the annual Global Competitiveness Report, from its Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance, (The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the Report). WEF also has a Corporate Global Citizenship initiative. See the previous page for a complete listing of the indicators used to compile their Global Competitiveness Index.

Encyclopedia of Earth: "an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other's work. The articles are written in non-technical language and are useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public."

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) [Publisher of Foreign Affairs] has a recent (19.09.2009) comprehensive report on World Opinion on the Global Economy. "International polls find strong support for globalization, though views lean moderately toward the position that the pace of globalization is too fast. People generally see international trade as positive for their country, their self and family, consumers, and their nation’s companies. However, views are more mixed about the impact of international trade on jobs and the environment. Polling conducted in the spring of 2009—during the depths of the global recession—found some softening of majority support for globalization in general with majorities in many nations favoring a temporary increase in protectionism in light of the recession.".

CIESIN "The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) is a center within the Earth Institute at Columbia University. CIESIN works at the intersection of the social, natural, and information sciences, and specializes in on-line data and information management, spatial data integration and training, and interdisciplinary research related to human interactions in the environment. See, especially, Thematic Guide on Political Institutions and Global Environmental Change, key documents and data sets pertaining to the relationship between political institutions and the human dimension of global environmental change. This guide provides only an overview of available information.

Centre for Global Policy: "The Center for Global Policy at George Mason University, directed by Professor Jack A. Goldstone, conducts research on a wide range of global policy issues. Center faculty undertake basic academic research on such topics as foreign trade, democratization and state-building, and transnational networks, and analyze specific policy issues for a variety of government agencies. The Center's faculty work in four main clusters:
    * Conflict, Terrorism, Democratization, and State-Building
    * International Trade, Finance, and International Organizations
    * Culture, Opinion, and Global Policy
    * Information Technology, Learning, and Development"
This site is also home to the Political Instability Task Force - which "lists comparative information on cases of total and partial state failure (i.e., periods of political instability) that began between 1955 and 2006 in independent countries with populations greater than 500,000. The four types of events included are revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, adverse regime changes, and genocides and politicides."

Globalisation:  a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the examination of social, political, economic, and technological globalization

Uni>ersia: Knowledge@Wharton: a leading business school's contribution to global (business) learning, with business-focused research and 'hot' studies/cases.

GDAE (pronounced gee-day) Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. "In our effort to understand actual and possible trajectories of economic development, GDAE researchers emphasize ecological health and the correlation between social and economic well-being. This requires expanding our theoretical understanding of economic systems, recognizing that they are embedded in the physical contexts of technology and the natural world, as well as in the social/psychological contexts of history, politics, ethics, culture, institutions, and human motivations. Throughout all of its activities, theoretical advances at GDAE are informed by the Institute's applied and policy work, while its practical applications of economics are enhanced by a growing theoretical understanding of what is required to promote socially and environmentally just and sustainable development."  GDAE is one of three institutions running the Triple Crisis Blog : “The world is experiencing three simultaneous crises in finance, development, and the environment.  A number of economists are questioning the mainstream narratives and analyses of these crises.  Some of us have joined to create Triple Crisis blog to contribute to a more open and global dialogue around these three crises: about how they interact, and how they can collectively be solved.”

Global Dashboard Notes from the future: "Global Dashboard explores global risks and international affairs, bringing together authors who work on foreign policy in think tanks, government, academia and the media. It was set up in 2007 and is edited from the UK by Alex Evans and David Steven".

'Food security: feeding the world in 2050' Special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, September 27, 2010; 365 (1554), compiled and edited by H. Charles J. Godfray, John R. Beddington, Ian R. Crute, Lawrence Haddad, David Lawrence, James F. Muir, Jules Pretty, Sherman Robinson and Camilla Toulmin

BreathingEarth:  Population growth and CO2 emissions starkly and vividly portrayed (though with no easy access to the underlying data) (link supplied by a member of the 2010 class - thanks.)

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) - "an independent international research organisation, we are specialists in linking local to global. .. launched in 1971 by renowned economist and policy advisor Barbara Ward, making it one of the very first organisations to link environment with development. The institute has played key roles in the Stockholm Conference of 1972, the Brundtland Commission of 1987, the 1992 Earth Summit and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, and is now helping to shape the global debate on climate change."

And, finally and of course, the Economist. as a major source of world news and informed commentary.

5. Trade & its Meaning.

For a recent and authoritative review of the present (2012/13) state of world trade, see Pascal Lamy's Richard Snape Lecture (DG, WTO) on 26 November, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia, and here, for the latest statement about the still ongoing/stalled Doha round of multilateral negotiations (April, 2013).

See Love & Lattimore: OECD Insights: International Trade: Free, Fair and Open?, 2009.

Trade statistics, like all statistics, are like underwear - what they reveal is intersting, what they conceal is vital - see, especially, the i-pad value added story, and, more recently and more comprehensive value-added trade data from the OECD. (v. short summary/highlights here)

6. Food Security & Food Markets

See Headey and Fan, IFPRI, for the most authoritative commentary and explanation of the 2006/8 food price spike, and apparent repetetion in 2010., and see companion notes for more detail on the 2008 spike.


Questions or comments?

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