The "traditional structural approach" to determining real commodity prices has relied exclusively on demand factors as the fundamentals that explain the behavior of commodity prices. This framework, however, has been unable to explain the marked and sustained weakness in these prices during the...

The financial crisis has led to a widespread loss of trust in financial intermediaries of all kinds, perhaps helping to open the way towards the general acceptance of alternative technologies. This paper briefly summarises the crypto-currency phenomenon, separating the ‘currency’ issues from...

There are many reasons why the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reporting framework requests information from countries. These include understanding and tracking progress with individual or collective commitments or pledges, providing confidence and enhancing...

An enhanced transparency framework is a central component of the Agreement, and will apply to all Parties, with flexibility for developing country Parties that need it in the light of their capacities. This paper examines how such flexibility might be operationalised when reporting information...

The financial crisis has led to a widespread loss of trust in financial intermediaries of all kinds, perhaps helping to open the way towards the general acceptance of alternative technologies. This paper briefly summarises the crypto-currency phenomenon, separating the ‘currency’ issues from...

En este artículo se examina la relación entre la Cooperación al Desarrollo y el desarrollo capitalista, prestando especial atención a los cambios en ambos en las últimas décadas. Se argumenta que la Cooperación al Desa¬rrollo forma parte de la propia estructura económica mundial...

This paper provides new estimates of the housing stock, construction rates and price developments by city tier in China in order to understand where excess supply might be concentrated, and the implications of any significant contraction. We also update estimates of the size of China's rapidly...

This paper studies strategic decision making by a private currency ledger operator, which faces competition from public money and/or other ledgers. A monopoly ledger operator can incentivize contract enforcement across the financial sector by threatening exclusion, but it can also impose markups...

Each of the world's largest retailers---Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, and Metro---entered China after 1995. Their subsequent expansion in China may have influenced Chinese exports through two channels. First, they may have enhanced bilateral exports between the retailers' Chinese operations and...

The accumulation of international reserves by emerging markets raises the question of how to best utilize these funds. This paper explores two routes through which the pooling of reserves could enhance stability and welfare. First, the reserve pool could be used for emergency lending in response...