Did DR-CAFTA Affect the Exports of the Dominican Republic to the United States?

This article evaluates the impact the Dominican Republic and Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) had on the exports of the Dominican Republic (DR) to the United States. We estimate a gravity model for the DR exports to the 109 trade partners of the country from 1990 to 2014. This model quantifies the effect of the DR-CAFTA since 2007, when the agreement was ratified, and finds that the DR-CAFTA negatively affected DR exports to the US. We conduct further analysis of factors that could explain the decline in exports, in spite of the ratification of the agreement. We find that the 2008–09 crisis was not the driver of the slowdown of DR exports to the US. The increasing competition with Central American countries and other export oriented economies, like China, in the US market seem to have the leading role in the export contraction that we find in our study

Brief 1: Financing International Environmental Governance: Lessons from the United Nations Environment Programme

Financing for the global environment is scattered among many institutions and, without an overview of total financial flows, often considered scarce. This issue brief begins an analysis of the financial landscape by focusing on the anchor institution for the global environment, the UN Environment Programme. It examines the relationship between institutional form and funding and offers insights into innovative financing

The Northern fisheries of the Russian Federation. Institutions in transition

The existing management system in the Russian fishing industry was created as a result of the political, economic and institutional transformations that took place in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. This thesis analyses the processes in the fisheries that led to the establishment of the existing institutional and management practice. The study seeks to find out how the existing system of fisheries management has formed as a result of the economic reforms and institutional changes taking place, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A special focus of the study is on the division of the management authority between the federal centre and the regions, and the influence of this on the institutional changes in the fisheries. The analysis discusses the validity of hypothesis based on the assumption that the interests, norms, and values of the federal authorities versus those of the regional authorities are the driving forces of the institutional changes in the northern fisheries of the Russian Federation. The study concludes that in addition to the processes that took place inside the fisheries complex the overall transformation of the political and economic order that occurred in Russia was a driving force of the institutional changes in the Russian fisheries

Global Governance in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Environmental Pillar

The United Nations was created in 1945 without an environmental body. Almost thirty years later, in 1972, governments established UNEP. Twenty years later, in the early 1990s, when rethinking the institutional arrangements, they created the Global Environment Facility and the Commission on Sustainable Development, as well as several core conventions (on climate, biodiversity and desertification). Despite the attempts to bring about further governance reform over the last decade, however, progress has been limited. While governance discussions continued, they were never explicitly on the political agenda. Now, for the first time since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, a clear political opportunity to reshape the institutions for environment and development has opened up. The 2012 Rio Conference on Sustainable Development is expected to make decisions on governance under the rubric ‘institutional framework for sustainable development,’ one of the core themes of the Conference. Even a decision for no reform will have enduring consequences and will shape the actions of the global community over the next twenty years

UMass Boston Coasts and Communities IGERT Program

The Coasts and Communities IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) Program starting in 2014 at the University of Massachusetts Boston provides PhD students with the skills to understand the interactions between natural and human systems and to develop appropriate policy solutions for urban and urbanizing environments. By emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and communication, this program aims to enable trainees to apply innovative and sustainable solutions across geographical, political, and economic contexts

Anticipation in the Structure of the Solving Problems Skill

In the study the accent is put on the significant role of the foreseeing in the heuristic aspects of the solving problems activity. Theoretical formulations are deduced and the possibility of its purposeful formation is well-founded on the basis of the developing training particularities by the solving problems process. In order to attain the goal the following methods are used: content analysis, pedagogical observation, pedagogical experiment, method of the determination of a success standard and a correlation degree. The obtained results of the theoretical and experimental work are directed to the integration with the intellectual development of children and pupils

Evolutionary Conservation of the Heterochronic Pathway in C. elegans and C. briggsae

Heterochronic genes control the sequence and timing of developmental events during four larval stages of Caenorhabitis nematodes. Mutations in these genes may cause skipping or reiteration of developmental events. C. briggsae is a close relative of C. elegans. These species have similar morphology and share the same ecological niche. C. briggsae undergoes the same developmental pathway consisting of four larval stages before reaching adulthood. It also has the same set of heterochronic genes. Lin-28 is one of the heterochronic genes that also exists in other animals from flies to humans. It conservatively blocks the maturation of let-7 miRNA, the process is generally associated with the stem cell state. lin-28 is silenced as cells differentiate. C. elegans mutants of lin-28 have a reduced number of seam cells and precocious alae. Despite the highly conserved protein sequence, C. briggsae develop a distinct phenotype when its lin 28 is disrupted. Worms did not have a characteristic vulval development defect, they also became lethargic and had a reduced fertility. This observation led to a question of how conserved the heterochronic pathway is in close species