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

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

The Profit Motive: Can Corporate Networks be an Effective Conduit for Improving Worker Rights?

A review of: Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? By Kimberly Elliott and Richard Freeman. Washington: Institute for International Economics, 2003. 179pp. and Rising Above Sweatshops: Innovative Approaches to Global Labor Challenges. Edited by Laura Hartman, Denis Arnold and Richard Wokutch. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2003. 414pp. and Transnational Corporations and Human Rights. Edited by Jedrzej Frynas and Scott Pegg. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 223pp

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

The Demand Side of Social Protection Lessons from Cambodia's Labour Rights Experience

Abstract 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's 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.ADB_Women_and_trade.pdf: 116 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Working Paper No. 2010/103 Poverty in the Eyes of Brazilian Elites

This paper discusses data from a survey and in-depth interviews on elite perceptions of poverty in Brazil. De Swaan tried to identify the circumstances under which elites are willing to mobilize resources in order to promote poverty reduction. This paper questions if de Swaan’s analysis applies to Brazil. The main finding is that two parts of de Swaan’s thesis do apply: that poverty is a problem for the rich in the sense that it generates negative externalities that they would like to reduce; and that the elite believe that there are effective remedies. What is missing for Brazilian elites is the third element, namely that the elite see poverty as their responsibility to do something about it

The Impact of Trade and Technology on Skills in Viet Nam

Market-oriented reforms, such as liberalizing trade and encouraging foreign direct investment, can generate large efficiency gains for a country. However, there is also concern that lower-skilled workers are increasingly being replaced by technology and that more globalized markets are harming employment opportunities. This paper investigates these important issues by exploring household surveys from Viet Nam, combined with information on the task content of occupations, industrial exposure to international trade, and access to technology across the country. We assess the extent to which exposure to foreign markets and access to digital technologies affect the demand for different types of skills, by exploiting the fact that provinces vary in the degree of access to digital technologies and industries vary in the degree of exposure to foreign markets. In our work, we also extend much of the literature to consider the interplay between trade and technology on labor demand. On its own, technological change does not appear to be a main driver of the demand for skill in Viet Nam. Increased trade, rather, does expand employment opportunities across both skilled and unskilled workers. Consistent with classic trade theory, the increase is stronger for manual and routine tasks, shifting the composition of the labor force toward lower-skilled workers. However, the increase in manual and routine employment opportunities in response to the trade shock is smaller in areas of the country with access to digital technologies, providing suggestive evidence of the routine-biased nature of technology. From a policy standpoint, our work contributes to an understanding of job requirements and job security in an increasingly technology-driven and integrated world economy. Our research also offers insights for other lesser developing countries that face similar challenges.ADB_Impact_of_Trade_and_Technology_on_Skills_Vietnam.pdf: 271 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020