The Group of 7 and international terrorism : the snowball effect that never materialized

The article looks at the Group of 7 (G7) efforts to fight international terrorism in the 1970s and early 1980s. It examines the G7 statement against hijacking, the Bonn Declaration of 1978, and assesses how the G7 dealt with it after the adoption of the Declaration. The article illustrates that after a short phase of enthusiasm just after the Declaration’s adoption, the G7 members’ united front against terrorism quickly eroded. The G7 failed to secure support from other countries and realized the economic and political costs that the implementation of the Declaration could produce. Therefore, it was pushed to the backburner. The Declaration was largely of symbolic and only of very little practical importance. Yet, it still pointed to the new approach of the G7 – present until today – that moved away from a purely economic agenda towards a progressively more political one.PostprintPeer reviewe

Estimated Open Economy New Keynesian Phillips Curves for the G7

In this paper we develop an open economy model of firms' pricing behaviour under imperfect competition. This allows us to introduce various terms of trade effects influencing the firm's pricing decision, in addition to labour costs which dominate most closed-economy specifications of the New Keynesian Phillips (NKPC) curve. Our analysis gives rise to a hybrid open economy NKPC which nests existing closed and open economy specifications adopted in empirical work. We estimate this specification for the G7 economies and find that the US, UK and Canada typically enjoy less inertia in price setting than the European G7 economies and Japan and that these estimates are both plausible and in line with survey evidence. We also find that the proportion of firms which use simple backward-looking rules of thumb in price setting is greater when the frequency of price change is smaller. Finally there is evidence of significant asymmetries in price setting amongst EMU members.

The G20 turns ten: what’s past is prologue. Bruegel Policy Contribution Issue n˚20 | November 2018

Executive summary The first G20 leaders’ summit was held in Washington DC in November 2008. This Policy Contribution assesses the performance of this informal but influential institution since then to understand what could lie ahead. We focus on the coordination of national economic policies as this has been at the core of the G20 leaders’ agenda throughout the decade. The G20 leaders created a supportive political environment for strong national and global actions soon after they first met. This prevented a global depression but was followed by an uneven recovery. The leaders early on called for enhanced coordination of macroeconomic policies. This was clearly an ambitious undertaking given the limited success of earlier coordination efforts within the more homogeneous G7. Even after ten years such coordination remains a work in progress. The G20’s emerging and developing economy members, with the exception of China, have remained cautious in their engagement on macro policies. This caution might reflect emerging and developing economies’ discomfort at the obligations that could arise if they come to be considered systemically important despite lower levels of income, wealth and institutional capacity. Habits of cooperation among the newcomers are also less developed than within the G7. Coordination between the G7 members is reinforced by the G7 continuing to hold its own leaders’ meetings separate from the G20. While emerging and developing economies are catching up with advanced economies in their contribution to real output and merchandise trade, the picture is very different where cross-border finance is concerned. Transactions on capital account are dominated by the advanced economies. Despite a shared concern for global financial stability, this asymmetry makes for different priorities in the reform of global finance. The G20’s emerging and developing economy members seek to insulate their less open and more vulnerable financial systems from shocks arising from policy measures taken by the advanced economies, and to make global liquidity less dependent on the US dollar. The leaders’ summit from 30 November to 1 December 2018 in Buenos Aires (concluding the Argentine G20 Presidency) and the summit to follow in Osaka in June 2019 (hosted by Japan) both provide opportunities for European G20 members to provide political leadership on this financial reform agenda, and on the important but hitherto neglected area of trad

Why Japan can't (or won't) stop using fossil fuels any time soon

The G7 leaders’ pledge to eliminate the use of fossil fuels as an energy source by century’s end could be the most significant outcome of the most recent meeting. It also reinforces German host Angela Merkel’s claim to be the “climate chancellor”. As is customary with such pledges, however, the announcement was short on specifics and it’s really not clear how reductions in fossil fuel usage can be achieved. After all, disasters at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 have made key G7 members considerably less enthusiastic about nuclear power, one obvious alternative

Estimated Open Economy New Keynesian Phillips Curves for the G7

In this paper we develop an open economy model of firms’ pricing be-haviour under imperfect competition. This allows us to introduce various terms of trade e .ects influencing the firm’s pricing decision, in addition to labour costs which dominate most closed-economy specifications of the New Keynesian Phillips (NKPC) curve. Our analysis gives rise to a hy-brid open economy NKPC which nests existing closed and open economy specifications adopted in empirical work. We estimate this specification for the G7 economies and find that the US, UK and Canada typically enjoy less inertia in price setting than the European G7 economies and Japan andthattheseestimatesareboth plausibleand in linewith sur-vey evidence. We also find that the proportion of firms which use simple backward-looking rules of thumb in price setting is greater when the fre-quency of price change is smaller. Finally there is evidence of significant asymmetries in price setting amongst EMU members.

Are international R&D spillovers costly for the US?

Coe and Helpman (1995) and others report positive and equivalent R&D spillovers across G7 countries. We argue that their homogeneity constraint on spillovers across G7 countries is inappropriate, and show that it is rejected by the data. Extending the data set and applying new empirical approaches, we find: (i) R&D spillovers are extremely heterogeneous across G7 countries; (ii) panel estimates do not correspond to country specific estimates and conceal important cross-country differences in knowledge diffusion; and (iii) the US is a net loser in terms of international R&D spillovers. Our interpretation is that when competitors ‘catch-up’ technologically, they challenge US market shares and investments worldwide and this has implications for US productivity

Shell-model interpretation of high-spin states in 134-I

New experimental information has been recently obtained on the odd-odd nucleus 134-I. We interpret the five observed excited states up to the energy of ~3 MeV on the basis of a realistic shell-model calculation, and make spin-parity assignments accordingly. A very good agreement is found between the experimental and calculated energies.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur