The Demand Side of Social Protection

In fragile states, social protection programmes are often a kaleidoscope of projects financed and implemented by a variety of donors, government agencies and NGOs. Such an environment does not foster a strong sense of ownership by beneficiaries, which weakens the likelihood of sustainability in the absence of donor interest or government commitment. Loosening demand-side constraints may provide incentive to sustain social progress, but it is unclear what political or social structures can effectively facilitate voice in fragile states. Cambodia.s unusual social protection trajectory offers some insight by presenting an example where labour rights has made substantial progress while all other protections lag. We assess whether the changed external environment might facilitate activism in other areas of social protection. Our analysis suggests that using an island of excellence to build institutions that open political space for activism can be a successful strategy in states where governments are unable or unwilling to provide comprehensive social protection systems.fragile states, Asia, social protection, Cambodia, social movements, labour standards

Operationalizing Experience: Donor Approaches to Service Delivery in Fragile States

This study explores the different approaches to service delivery in fragile states by surveying donors' own evaluations of their existing fragile states policies. Because there is limited understanding of what works in risky environments, monitoring and evaluation are critical components of effective assistance. By highlighting trends in the strategies that donors have developed to implement acknowledged good practices, we can better understand how these experiences might contribute to future project and evaluation design

The demand side of social protection: Lessons from Cambodia's labour rights experience

In fragile states, social protection programmes are often a kaleidoscope of projects financed and implemented by a variety of donors, government agencies and NGOs. Such an environment does not foster a strong sense of ownership by beneficiaries, which weakens the likelihood of sustainability in the absence of donor interest or government commitment. Loosening demand-side constraints may provide incentive to sustain social progress, but it is unclear what political or social structures can effectively facilitate voice in fragile states. Cambodia's unusual social protection trajectory offers some insight by presenting an example where labour rights has made substantial progress while all other protections lag. We assess whether the changed external environment might facilitate activism in other areas of social protection. Our analysis suggests that using an island of excellence to build institutions that open political space for activism can be a successful strategy in states where governments are unable or unwilling to provide comprehensive social protection systems

Women and Trade: Gender\u27s Impact on Trade Finance and Fintech

Woman-owned firms engage differently with finance for trade. The barriers they face in starting and running a business are well-known. Yet, this offers little insight into how they finance their business once globalized. Surveys indicate that finance is often the primary barrier to trade. We seek to deepen and modernize this finding by using a unique data set to explore the patterns of financial access exhibited by woman-owned exporting firms. We show that women face two levels of exclusion in access to finance—access to basic finance and access to trade finance. The latter is driven by characteristics common to firms owned by women. Also, in line with existing work, we show that woman-owned firms tend to turn to informal finance as an alternative more than their male counterparts. However, we also show that women are more likely to adopt fintech as a financial solution than men. This suggests that policies aimed at incentivizing banks to lend more to women may not be solving the right problem

Are least developed countries sidelined in advanced manufacturing production networks?

The fragmentation of production has expanded the geographic reach of even the most high-technology value chains into non-traditional suppliers. It has been suggested that the production of parts for high-technology final products can play an important role in advancing economic development. This is a particularly attractive outcome for poor countries. But due to data constraints, existing analysis is based largely on middle-income economies. In this paper, we seek to address this oversight by using proxy data to explore the position of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) located in Asia's vibrant regional production hub for electronics and automotive production. Have they also been able to benefit from the fragmentation of the production process? Our examination shows that there has been a surprising amount of LDC trade activity in these sectors over the past decade. In addition, a selected group of LDCs has succeeded in what appears to be successful engagement with these production networks. We discuss the forms of participation we observe and ask whether they might enable countries to attain development outcomes that might otherwise be out of their reach

Drivers of trade finance gaps

Banks are a critical facilitator of trade. Without bank-intermediated trade finance, global exports and imports would come to a halt. This has been apparent during the episodes of credit rationing that accompany financial shocks. But we have little insight into the drivers of rejection pooling by banks in normal times. Using augmented data from a global survey of financial institutions, we test the relative explanatory power of country- and bank-level characteristics as drivers of trade finance rejections in emerging markets and among small and medium-sized enterprises. The analysis suggests that rejections are driven by three broad factors: those inherent to the trade finance transaction including risk and income, those which indicate a redirection of bank's business lines, such as termination of correspondent relationships, and implementation of improved client screening mechanisms. Together, these suggest that solutions to trade finance gaps are most likely to be found outside of the traditional toolbox

Why Do Trade Finance Gaps Persist: Does it Matter for Trade and Development?

Trade finance shortfalls now appear regularly. Does this matter for trade expansion and economic development in developing countries? Global trade finance has resumed following the 2009 global financial crisis. However, the pattern of recovery has been uneven across countries and categories of firms. The recovery has been robust for the main routes of trade and for large trading companies. By contrast, access to trade finance remains costly and scarce in countries which have the strongest potential for trade expansion. The policy response to this problem depends on whether this represents a market failure, or a new global equilibrium. We introduce new data from a global survey of firms to argue that real shortfalls are exacerbated by perception gaps in a way that has enabled market failures to persist. This has troubling implications most directly through its effect on the ability for small firms to benefit from the reallocation of production and investment within global supply chains

Why trade finance gaps persist: Does it matter for trade and development?

Trade finance shortfalls now appear regularly. Does this matter for trade expansion and economic development in developing countries? Global trade finance has resumed following the 2009 global financial crisis. However, the pattern of recovery has been uneven across countries and categories of firms. The recovery has been robust for the main routes of trade and for large trading companies. By contrast, access to trade finance remains costly and scarce in countries which have the strongest potential for trade expansion. The policy response to this problem depends on whether this represents a market failure, or a new global equilibrium. We introduce new data from a global survey of firms to argue that real shortfalls are exacerbated by perception gaps in a way that has enabled market failures to persist. This has troubling implications most directly through its effect on the ability for small firms to benefit from the reallocation of production and investment within global supply chains

Why do trade finance gaps persist: Does it matter for trade and development?

Trade finance shortfalls now appear regularly. Does this matter for trade expansion and economic development in developing countries? Global trade finance has resumed following the 2009 global financial crisis. However, the pattern of recovery has been uneven across countries and categories of firms. The recovery has been robust for the main routes of trade and for large trading companies. By contrast, access to trade finance remains costly and scarce in countries which have the strongest potential for trade expansion. The policy response to this problem depends on whether this represents a market failure, or a new global equilibrium. We introduce new data from a global survey of firms to argue that real shortfalls are exacerbated by perception gaps in a way that has enabled market failures to persist. This has troubling implications most directly through its effect on the ability for small firms to benefit from the reallocation of production and investment within global supply chains

Industrialization under the World Trade Organization : the impact of asymmetric free trade agreements on middle-technology developing countries

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, February 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-221).This dissertation addresses the issue of industrialization in the WTO regime, focusing on the role of asymmetric free trade agreements. It proposes a framework where free trade agreements offer payoffs that countries have not been able to achieve through their WTO commitments. To evaluate these payoffs, I explore the mechanisms through which selected features of free trade agreements are translated into commercial outcomes. The central conclusion of this thesis is that free trade agreements provide developing countries with additional policy flexibility that is often not used to its fullest potential. Existing work on individual features of free trade agreements has focused primarily on those features that further constrain domestic policy options; the proposal that they may also expand policy options has been largely overlooked. It is a fact that in the WTO regime, the trade policy options available to developing countries have been restricted relative to the set that was available to their predecessors. Developing countries actively agreed to these restrictions with the expectation that growth and development would result from their participation in the WTO regime.(cont.) This unfulfilled expectation, in combination with a multilateral negotiation structure that is characterized by collective action problems, creates an incentive for WTO members to form supplementary trade associations as they seek to move forward politically and economically. Yet given that free trade agreements are also characterized by an uncertain payoff, this dissertation seeks to provide evidence that they do in fact result in positive industrial outcomes. The model I use here also explains why free trade agreements are able to deliver results that similar unilateral initiatives do not. I use the case study of the U.S.-Chile FTA to test the theory on a developing country that has specifically targeted free trade agreements as a feature of its industrial strategy. Empirical data from both the negotiation process and commercial outcomes illustrates that in terms of the expected payoffs of export diversity, increased bilateral trade and industrialization in general, free trade agreements offer countries the ability to design and implement elements of an interventionalist industrial strategy that is consistent with their WTO commitments.by Alisa DiCaprio.Ph.D