"Principled Embeddedness": How foreign direct Investment may contribute to inclusive and sustainable growth in developing economies?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a crucial role in enabling developing economies to embark on a path of inclusive growth. This applies in particular if local subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are committed to ‘principled embeddedness’ meaning that they are prepared to integrate parts of the local economy into global value chains by enabling them to comply with the required quality norms and standards. It also results in capacity development and technology transfer that is likely to benefit local entrepreneurs who contribute to the diversity of markets in the domestic economy. The empirically validated contribution of embedded subsidiaries of MNEs to inclusive growth challenge the normative view that FDI in developing economies would merely pose a threat to existing embedded economic systems

COP-27: A great opportunity to address the double crisis of food security and climate change–and for the EU to re-align its farm to fork strategy

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) held in November 2022 in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, ended with joint commitments to compensate for loss and damage and increase funds for climate change adaptation in future. This outcome is likely to be supportive of current efforts to render agricultural systems in low income tropical countries more resilient and productive through locally adapted forms of sustainable intensification. However, the farm-to-fork (f2f) strategy launched in 2020 by the European Union (EU) has set targets that associate sustainable agriculture primarily with extensification rather than intensification. This paper critically reviews the literature that assesses the impact of current agricultural, environmental and development policies on global food security, biodiversity and climate change. It challenges the view that the European Green Deal and the f2f strategy will have its desired effects. It also argues that the intention of the European Commission (EC) to promote the f2f strategy in low income tropical countries may not be compatible with its commitment to the ownership principle in development assistance. The decision of the EC in fall 2022 to propose a regulatory framework on new breeding techniques (NBTs) indicates that methods of sustainable intensification may be reconsidered if they serve the goals of the Green Deal and the f2f strategy. Such a readjustment would also be in line with the outcome of COP27 and indicate that the polarized global debate on sustainable food systems may become more pragmatic and outcome-oriented again

Risk, regulation and innovation: The case of aquaculture and transgenic fish

Abstract.: This paper reviews the public and scientific debates over the risks and benefits of aquaculture and aquatic biotechnology worldwide, and in the United States in particular. The basic argument is that business tends to respond to uncertainty with innovation in management and technology. Technological evolution in the fish business is therefore interpreted as a continuous response to new environmental and socioeconomic uncertainties and subsequent regulation. The use of aquatic biotechnology in fish breeding is just the latest technological response, but also the most controversial. Growth-enhanced transgenic salmon may become the first bioengineered animal product approved for use as food in the United States. The fish may boost future salmon harvests, contribute to productivity increases in aquaculture and lower consumer prices for salmon. But it also faces public opposition, reluctant investors and scientific skepticism due to mainly environmental concerns. The paper argues that even though the regulatory framework in the United States is well-elaborated, it may not be able to reassure public opposition once transgenic salmon should be approved as a ‘new animal drug'. Analogous to genetically modified food crops, the consumer market rather than regulation will determine the ultimate fate of transgenic fis

Die Mär von 'Oeko' contra 'Agro' : Die Kritiker der industriellen Landwirtschaft führen einen sinnlosen Kampf

Die Unterscheidung gründet auf der Annahme, dass "Agro", also die Agroindustrie, böse und "Öko", für Agrarökologie, gut sei. Dieses Gut-böse-Schema verursacht einen beträchtlichen Kollateralschaden für Gesellschaft und Umwelt, denn eine Zusammenarbeit von staatlichen und nichtstaatlichen Akteuren mit dem Privatsektor für die gemeinsame Erarbeitung von nachhaltigen Lösungen wird dadurch erschwert

Die zwei Agrarinitiativen pflegen auch unseren Chauvinismus

Die Agrarvorlagen, über die wir am 23. September abstimmen, gehen von einer Welt aus, die funktioniert wie im Globi-Buch – oder wie in den Klischees linker Geografielehrer

When corporatism leads to corporate governance failure : the case of Swiss watch industry

Corporatism is often seen as the way Swiss stakeholders in business and politics handle industrial challenges in a reasonable and flexible way. The following publication argues, however, that the emergence of corporatist structures in the Swiss watch industry has often encouraged rent-seeking and collusion at the expense of the creation of new markets through innovation. This legacy makes it currently difficult for the industry to effectively respond to new technological challenges and changing societal preferences in the global watch business. The report draws on archival sources, accessible since 2015, that were extensively discussed in the Swiss print media in early 2016. They provide increasing evidence of corporate governance failure in the 1983 merger of SSIH (Société suisse pour l’industrie horlogère) and ASUAG (Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG) that led to today’s Swatch Group. The merger, induced by the involved Swiss banks, was portrayed as a necessary step to save the two allegedly bankrupt watch companies. Yet, the archival sources show that ASUAG had already been successfully restructured and was ready to conquer global markets with its new product, the Swatch

Do Private Standards encourage or hinder trade and innovation?

Humankind shares a common interest in the safety of the products it uses and consumes and an increasing interest in the way the product has been produced. In a globalized world, private standards play a role in ensuring the safety and sustainability of products and production methods. The co-management of the public good ‘food safety’ by the public and the private sector is not new from a historical point of view. The industrial revolution in the 19th century was characterized by the emergence of new industries that made use of science and technology to create new products and services and it was industry itself that started the creation and enforcement of private standards through independent non-for-profit standards organizations. The experience thus gained was later integrated into the design of national and international public standards. Such private standards are intended to ensure the safety of products made available through trade and innovation and as such would be in line with the WTO principle of non-discrimination. Yet the recent emergence of process-oriented international private standards may not always be in line with this principle. Buyer-driven private standards, especially if they are related to business-to-consumer (B2C) labels, are often more about corporate reputation management than sustainability. The present paper reviews the impact of such buyer-driven private standards on trade and innovation by looking at the governance of global value chains (GVC) by private standards. The conclusion is that business-to-business (B2B) private standards may indeed encourage more sustainable producer practices and reduce uncertainty in GVCs, but they are costly and often not sufficiently responsive to local challenges. B2C-based private standards need to become less influenced by advoca