The Global Macroeconomic Situation and Policy Implications
PREM Note 122
August 2008 is the first anniversary of the start of the sub-prime criss. This PREM Note provides some perspectives on the ongoing financial turmoil and the present complicated situation in the world economy. Two unifying themes can help to organize the discussion.

 

August 2008

Climate Change, Growth and Poverty
PREM Note Special Series: CC N. 5
Equity emerged as the principal theme during the PREM Week 2008 session “Climate Change, Growth and Poverty,” where presenters addressed the distributional consequences of climate change, as well as countries’ unequal capacity to cope with the twin challenges of adaptation and mitigation. They highlighted actions to strengthen the global knowledge base, bolster domestic institutions, and mobilize innovative sources of financing as immediate priorities for the World Bank and its partners.

 

July 2008

Carbon Labelling and Poor Country Exports
PREM Note Special Series: CC N. 4
Carbon labelling is being adopted by private firms as a mechanism for mitigating climate change. Such schemes are likely to have a significant impact on low-income country exports due to the need for transportation and the small size of their exporters. However, transport emissions may be offset by favorable production conditions and size bias may be reduced. The design and implementation of carbon labelling will need to take into account a number of complex, technical challenges. As innovative solutions emerge, it is important that low income countries are involved in discussions on the design and implementation of carbon labelling.

 

July 2008

Climate Change and Poverty: An Integrated Strategy for Adaptation
PREM Note Special Series: CC N. 3
Developing countries are most exposed to the impact of climate change and within these countries, the poor face the brunt of the burden. Climate change is not a discrete problem that can be dealt with through isolated reforms: impacting economic growth, health, and institutional capacity, it represents a full-frontal challenge to development. This note traces the multi-dimensional impacts of climate change, particularly on the poor, and proposes a three pronged integrated response to promote adaptation and help poor households cope with related risks.

 

July 2008

What is the Role of Carbon Taxes in Climate Change Mitigation?
PREM Note Special Series: CC N. 2
This note argues that a carbon tax system is more practical to implement, monitor and enforce than tradable permit-based approaches to global climate-change action. It suggests that a sensible design would be an upstream carbon tax on the fossil fuel supply chain, which could also include other major non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs). While risks such as fiscal cushioning exist, a tax-based system would be more transparent and offer the appropriate incentives for participation and compliance.

 

July 2008

Who Bears the Burden of Environmental Policies within Countries?
PREM Note Special Series: CC N. 1
Climate change policies will have distributional consequences across and within countries. Most of the current environmental policy instruments tend to be regressive and impose a higher burden on the poor. Despite their limitations, more systematic incidence assessments for CC policies are needed so that adaptation and mitigation policies address their distributional effects within countries.

 

July 2008

Information Access, Governance, and Service Delivery in Key Sectors: Themes and Lessons from Kenya and Ethiopia
PREM Note 121
This Note highlights the institutional context of information flows and differences in sector performance in service provision on the basis of forms of information, its access and availability, and dissemination.

 

July 2008

Global Food Price Crisis - Trade Policy Options
PREM Note 120
The current global food price crisis has deep historical roots in the distortions of the world trading system (see companion note, Global Food Price Crisis—Trade Policy Origins). Trade policy options to deal with the crisis involve correcting these historical distortions. They include removing export controls on agricultural products, eliminating restrictions on humanitarian food aid, reducing excessive stocks of food grains, reversing biofuel subsidies and protection to inefficient producers, lowering customs duties on agricultural products, facilitating agriculture trade, completing the Doha round of trade negotiations, and, in the long run, further liberalizing agricultural trade on a multilateral basis. Many importing countries have already embarked on this agenda by slashing tariffs to lower the costs in their domestic markets.

 

June 2008

Global Food Price Crisis - Trade Policy Origins
PREM Note 119
The current spike in global food prices has deep roots in decades of trade-distorting policies that have encouraged inefficient agricultural production in rich countries and discouraged efficient production in developing countries. Overall, the world has suffered from declining agricultural prices, overproduction in high-income countries, and underproduction in poor countries. This has resulted in thinner global agricultural markets than otherwise would be the case, more volatility, and lower overall reserve supply capacity and food security. This note discusses the trade policy origins of the global food price crisis. A companion note reviews the trade policy options to deal with the crisis.

 

June 2008

Let the Sunshine In: The Making of the Transparency and Access to Information Law in Honduras
PREM Note 118
On November 27, 2006, the Honduran Congress approved the Transparency and Access to Information (ATI) Law. As an active participant in the G-161 and pro-tempore chair of its Transparency Roundtable during the time the bill was under discussion, the World Bank (WB) contributed in different ways to facilitate an open and quality policy debate. This note recounts this process to illustrate how the WB can act as a catalyst in the context of a domestically driven agenda, as envisioned by the Governance and Anticorruption (GAC) strategy.

 

June 2008