The Global Governance of Systemic Risk: How Measurement Practices Tame Macroprudential Politics

ABSTRACT

This article explores how systemic risk has been governed at the international level after the financial crisis. While macroprudential ideas have been widely embraced, the policy instruments used to implement them have typically revolved more narrowly around the monitoring of risk posed by discrete ‘systemically important’ entities. This operational focus on individual entities sidelines the more radical implications of macroprudential theory regarding fallacies of composition, fundamental uncertainty and the public control of finance. We explain this tension using a performative understanding of risk as a socio-technical construction, and illustrate its underlying dynamics through case studies of systemic risk governance at the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund). Drawing on official reports, consultation documents and archival sources, we argue that the FSB’s and IMF’s translations of systemic risk into a measurable and attributable object have undermined the transformative potential of the macroprudential agenda. The two cases illustrate how practices of quantification can make systemic risk seemingly more governable but ultimately more elusive.     

New Powers and the Distribution of Preferences in Global Trade Governance: From Deadlock and Drift to Fragmentation

ABSTRACT

Existing theories make divergent predictions about the impact of new powers on the global political economy. Some argue that a more even distribution of power will erode international cooperation, while others argue that cooperation can continue with the help of international institutions to overcome collective action problems. We argue that this debate overlooks a critical determinant of the shape of power transitions: the distribution of preferences amongst the major powers. It is primarily in the context of divergent preferences that power transitions are likely to give rise to conflict. Moreover, even where preferences diverge, the gains of cooperation provide a strong incentive to continue to pursue goals through multilateralism. This situation leads to forms of institutional change unanticipated by established theories. These include deadlock in expansive multilateral fora, institutional drift as old rules cannot keep up with the changing political and economic context, and fragmentation as countries seek minilateral solutions that reduce preference diversity. We develop this preference-based, institutional argument by examining the distribution of preferences and institutional change at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its Doha Round, where the power transition is relatively advanced.     

China in Global Economic Governance

China has made contradictory claims about its attitude toward the existing international order. Is China a “responsible stakeholder” in the existing international regimes? Or has China been a new type of great power seeking to reform the existing world order, making it more friendly toward the global South? In this article, we look beyond Chinese rhetoric and examine China's behavior in global economic governance. A comparison with other emerging powers and traditional major powers shows that China has been actively involved in global economic governance. But, thus far, China has not exercised substantive leadership nor has it pushed hard for change to benefit the developing countries. The level of its support of the current regimes varies across issue areas and is primarily driven by its changing economic interest.     

Trade Wars and the World Trade Organization: Causes,Consequences, and Change

The rise in trade tensions and launch of a trade war by the USA is in part a result of World Trade Organization (WTO) working practices that have impeded the ability to use the organization to address the underlying sources of conflict through dialogue, analysis, and rule‐making. Open plurilateral agreements between the major protagonists offer an avenue for revitalizing the ability of the WTO to resolve trade conflicts. More generally, reform of WTO working practices is needed for the organization to be more effective in providing a platform for members to cooperate on trade policy matters.     

全球失衡治理的博弈论分析

全球经济失衡问题由于其破坏性及强复杂性,一直以来都是全球治理平台上的热议论题之一。探讨全球治理与贸易保护主义之间博弈的形成以及未来如何协调处理的问题。概括来讲,全球治理的艰难发展体现了各国之间的政策博弈结果。利用博弈模型分析全球治理不仅能够帮助鉴别各国接受全球经济治理时的配合度,也有利于督促各国政府采取负责任的调整政策及措施。     

New Protagonists in Global Economic Governance: Brazilian Agribusiness at the WTO

The existing international economic order has been heavily shaped by US power and the US has been a key driver of globalisation and neoliberal economic restructuring, prompting speculation about whether the rise of new developing country powers could rupture the current trajectory of neoliberal globalisation. This paper analyses the case of Brazil at the World Trade Organization (WTO), a core institution in global economic governance. In the last decade, Brazil successfully waged two landmark trade disputes against the US and EU and created a coalition of developing countries – the G20 – which brought an end to the dominance of the US and EU at the WTO and made their trade policies a central target of the Doha Round. Brazil's activism has been widely hailed as a major victory for developing countries. However, I argue that rather than challenging the neoliberal agenda of the WTO, Brazil has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates of free market globalisation and the push to expand and liberalise global markets. I show that Brazil's stance has been driven by the rise of its export-oriented agribusiness sector. This case demonstrates that business actors from the Global South are becoming significant new protagonists in global economic governance; they are taking the tools created by the states and corporations of the Global North – in this case, the WTO and its neoliberal discourse – and turning them against their originators. At the same time, their interests are being wrapped in and advanced through a discourse of development and social justice and a strategic mobilisation of the politics of the North-South divide.     

国际货币体系失衡下的中国汇率政策

中国汇率升值预期过高的基本原因是货币性的,而实际上实体经济层面升值压力并不大。人民币将会在双向波动、小幅升值过程中保持相对稳定,并在适当时机适度扩大浮动区间。当前,汇率对世界贸易基本格局的影响已经弱化,不能依赖汇率自发调整贸易失衡。中美应加强合作,共同进行经济结构调整。中国应强化内需主导战略,与亚洲国家一起在经济和货币上,逐步摆脱对美国的过度依赖。     

Free Trade Agreements and the Prospects for Regional Integration in East Asia

Trade policy in East Asia has switched from non-discriminatory unilateral liberalization, reinforced by General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) commitments, to discriminatory free trade agreements (FTA). The paper surveys the FTA activity of the major regional players: China, the ASEAN countries, Japan, and South Korea. It concludes that emerging FTAs are weak and partial. A hub-and-spoke pattern of dirty FTAs will not drive regional economic integration or further integration with the global economy. Rather, it could be a force of regional economic disintegration – especially if the multilateral trading system weakens further. At the same time, FTA activity is distracting attention from the WTO, and, more fundamentally, from unilateral liberalization and domestic structural reforms. Hence, East Asian trade policies need to be rebalanced, with better-quality FTAs and more focus on the WTO. However, more important than the WTO and FTAs is a fresh spurt of unilateral liberalization and structural reform outside trade negotiations.     

Multi-level Governance and Global Climate Change in East Asia

Climate change is an issue that requires integrated action at multiple levels of government and within the spheres of politics, economics, and society. National, regional, and local governments have both distinct and complementary roles in developing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. Compared with the attention that has been given to international and national activities in East Asia, relatively limited attention has been paid to the role of urban and regional governments in combating global climate change. Cities and provinces are initiating their own climate action plans, positioning themselves as environmental model cities, and joining local, national, and international networks for climate change. This article examines urban and prefectural climate policies in China, Japan, and South Korea within a multilevel governance framework.     

Regional and Global Responses to the Asian Crisis

This paper examines how economic policy-making changed as a result of the Asian crisis of 1997–1998, in the countries affected, in the region, and at the global level. It is perhaps surprising how little change has occurred in the broad approach to economic policy, but there is a much greater awareness of the vulnerabilities posed by large international capital flows. The broad tenets of the Washington Consensus, with its market-based policies, remain in place, but there is a recognition that well-functioning markets require complex institutions, rules, and procedures, and that these take time and effort to develop. Most of this institutional development will have to take place at the national level, but regional arrangements can offer support, and multilateral agencies, such as the International Monetary Fund, have learned from the crisis.     

Macroeconomic determinants of the world trade disputes

This article is whether and how the world macroeconomic environments influence the world trade disputes. We use two-pronged approach. First, we try to answer the question whether and how global macroeconomic environments are attached to the count of the world trade disputes. Even if the traditional literature captures it at the national-level, global picture needs to be completed. The second question we address is that given the set of trade dispute initiating countries, whether and how differently high-, middle- and low-income countries respond to their macroeconomic environments in their decision-makings of trade disputes initiations. The universe in the second question is a selected set of the filing countries only, not all countries on this planet. One can capture the behaviours of the countries involved in the trade disputes under certain macroeconomic circumstances. The period is from 1995 to 2008, covering all records of trade disputes since the birth of the World Trade Organization (WTO).     

财政透明化背景下的政府治理变革

财政透明度是民主社会中更为广泛的公众知情权和政府信息披露制度的重要组成部分。中国财政透明度同发达国家相比存在很大的差距，甚至落后于许多发展中国家。本文通过对财政透明度的基础理论分析，认为财政透明化作为政府治理变革的核心，对于政府治理效率的提高有积极性影响。为了适应经济全球化发展趋势，在更多领域内参与国际竞争与合作，就必须规范政府行为，实现政府治理再造，     

全球渔业治理之关键问题分析

最近20年来,由于普遍认识到全球各地鱼类种群的利用程度已经或正逐渐超过其最优利用水平,以及各国渔业普遍面临经济和社会危机,渔业治理问题逐渐受到普遍关注。本文在阐述全球渔业治理现状的基础上,对全球渔业治理现有架构中的缺陷进行了深入分析,提出渔业治理的改进关键在于是否能够确立一个长期稳定的治理范围和构筑一个灵活高效的治理结构。     

全球生产网络治理机制分析

全球生产网络是跨国公司在组织上的重要创新，它是以互补性分工为基础，通过相互依存的关系往来并以一定正式的规则(契约)相互联系在一起的一种组织治理模式。区别于市场和企业(古典型契约)，治理上采用共同治理、多元治理模式，并随核心资本的变化呈动态化发展。     

Financial Crisis, “New” Industrial Policy,and the Bite of Multilateral Trade Rules

The recent Great Recession has triggered substantial government intervention – not all of it macroeconomic. This article presents evidence that the sectoral incidence and forms of government intervention appear to have changed from pre-crisis regularities. Once the commercial significance of a sector is taken into account, pre-crisis measures of trade policy intervention poorly predict the crisis-era sectoral incidence of discriminatory state measures imposed by Asian governments. Qualitative evidence focusing on three key countries in Asia – China, Japan, and South Korea – is also marshaled to sustain the contention that Asian governments have used the recent economic crisis to reinvigorate industrial policies, targeting apparent growth poles and apparently environmentally friendly technologies and sectors. Implications for the expansion of World Trade Organization rules and their effectiveness are discussed.     

The labor market effects of trade union heterogeneity

Empirical evidence suggests that the bargaining power of trade unions differs across firms and sectors. Standard models of unionization ignore this pattern by assuming a uniform bargaining strength. In this paper, we incorporate union heterogeneity into a Melitz (2003) type model. Union bargaining power is assumed to be firm-specific and varies with firm productivity. This framework allows us to re-analyze the labor market effects of (i) a symmetric increase in the bargaining power of all unions and (ii) trade liberalization. We show that union heterogeneity unambiguously reduces the negative employment effects of stronger unions. Firm-specific bargaining power creates a link between unionization and the entry and exit of firms, implying a reduction of the unions' expected bargaining power. Moreover, union heterogeneity constitutes an (un)employment effect of trade liberalization. If unions are most powerful in the high-productivity (low-productivity) firms, trade liberalization will increase (decrease) unemployment.     

本土化和全球化并存下的企业责任和公司治理(英文)

近几年,公司治理日渐成为新的研究热点,吸引了各界广泛的兴趣。从传统意义上说,公司治理研究的是不同国家背景下的企业内部决策权分配的问题。本文却旨在超越传统观念,试图将公司治理概念与日益凸显的全球化统一起来。 为更好地探讨新的公司治理形式,我们粗泛地把它定义为：多重参与者影响下的、聚焦于企业合法利用国内外资源的企业战略决策。此定义带有与“战略方向”意义相一致的内涵。两者均承认治理决策对企业战略方向有影响,后者决定了企业和股东能否获得好的投资回报。 在战略管理领域,“公司治理专注于解决公司内部决策权分配的问题”（Gollis 和 Montgomery,1997）是一个被广泛接受的观点。传统观点认为,企业决策权的制定应局限于对企业资源有明确主张的内部利益相关者,而今,越来越多的人认识到企业外部的利益相关者也应获得企业决策权的合法权（Hill 和 Jones,2007）。尽管拓宽后的公司治理概念（也就是说,超越企业边界的社会群体与从中选举产生的董事会影响企业资源配置的决策权）常被归入企业社会责任范畴;可一量考虑到企业社会责任涵盖经济,生态和社会等内容,公司治理概念的外延也随之变得广阔起来——它要解决的问题不仅包括如何为公司股东聚焦财富,同时也包括如何对自然与社会环境施加直接的影响。 让我们把基本假设阐述得更清晰些。首先,政府的三个层面,即联邦、州（或省）及地方,对公司治理的影响是有效且关联的;其次,国际关系的描述性效用（可识别为各国基于企业资源决策的竞争性互动）对公司治理的影响越发显著。考虑到影响战略方向与绩效的国际层面互动,我们假设,除了三个传统的政府层面外,还存有重要性不弱于前者的第四层面（称其为超国家层面或许更恰当）。在此层面上,有众多影响企业治理的参与另两种组织（跨国公司、非政府组织）进行了详细讨论。 很明显,跨国公司、非政府组织是影响公司治理的新要素,它的出现已得到文献详细论述（Dah 和Jeegen,2003）。随着非政府组织影响的延展,要掌握当代公司治理的演化,我们需对“全球”和“本土”等几组概念进行扩展。举例而文言主,从“本土”视角看,拉丁美洲仅意味着地球的某一特定方位,如果拉丁美洲真的与世隔绝,用“本土”描述这一时空统一体当然是正确的。然而,由于快速沟通的实现,尤其是互联网的出现,只要点击鼠标,“本土”即刻成为了“全球”。因此,“本土”和“全球”合而为一是全球化的结果。 非政府组织领导者非常清楚全球性的根本改变,他们利用这种改变来增强自己的优势,并依据即定目标最大地发挥该组织的影响力。利用互联网的信息传播或是CNN的新闻报道,基于很低的成本,“绿色和平”组织可在几秒内把一件地区性小事（村落传闻）变成全球性大事（国际流言）。有鉴于此,“本上”不仅仅是方位,它还是发生在这个方位上的所有事件,而这些事件能迅速转化为国际性焦点。无疑,本土和全球已融为一体,我们也必须将他们视为一体。 为进一步阐明公司治理近几年已发生根本变化的观点,本文运用三个安全例来支持这种改变是如何在利益相关者试图影响公司战略方向的情况下发生的。案例一讲述执行墨西哥组装工厂计划的跨国公司回应关于外界呼吁其自主披露战略导向的故事。案例二描写的是沃尔玛在美国某社区建立分店的意图遭非政府组织与当地市民反对而最终落败的历程。案例三介绍多元化的利益相关者（政府、非政府组织、跨国公司、联合国等）如何通过国际制裁、国内立法和行业自治等手段以保护钻石产业免受战略性威胁。     

欧债危机对中国的影响及国际货币体系的改革思考

近期,欧债危机愈演愈烈,已显现出向欧元区核心国家蔓延的态势。本文重点分析了欧债危机对中国的影响,在此基础上从短期和长期两个角度提出了中国面对欧债危机的应对之策。同时,作者分析了欧债危机对今后区域与国际货币体系改革的启示,并探讨了中国如何参与当前国际货币体系的改革。     

气候变化全球治理的处境、困境与路径

应对气候变化的全球治理无疑是当今世界最受关注的治理实践。与人们的期望相背,气候治理的实践一直都是并将在可见的将来都会是举步维艰的。之所以如此,是由气候治理的内在困境所决定的;因此,有效的治理路径只能是立足于现实困境之上的谨慎探索。