Determinants of global CO2 emissions growth

This paper analyzes global CO2 emissions growth by fossil fuel type (coal, oil or gas), demand type (consumption or investment), country group (developed or developing country) and industry group. The results indicate that, among the three fossil fuels, CO2 emissions from coal use grew the most rapidly in developing countries, by 3.76 Gt in the period 1995–2009. By contrast, CO2 emissions from natural gas use grew the most rapidly in developed countries, by 470 Mt in the period 1995–2009. Further decompositions show that, despite improvements in energy efficiency, the upgrades in infrastructures and changes in electricity requirements in developing countries have led to significant CO2 emissions growth from coal use. Among these countries, China accounts for a high contribution, causing a coal-use-related CO2 emissions growth of up to 2.79 Gt in the period 1995–2009. By contrast, consumption by the public and social services as well as chemical products is the dominant force driving CO2 emission growth from gas in developed countries; the US accounts for a very high contribution, causing a gas-use-related CO2 emissions growth of up to 100 Mt

Aid on Demand: African Leaders and the Geography of China's Foreign Assistance

This article investigates whether China’s foreign aid is particularly prone to political capture by political leaders of aid-receiving countries. Specifically, we examine whether more Chinese aid is allocated to the political leaders’ birth regions and regions populated by the ethnic group to which the leader belongs, controlling for indicators of need and various fixed effects. We have collected data on 117 African leaders’ birthplaces and ethnic groups and geocoded 1,650 Chinese development finance projects across 3,097 physical locations committed to Africa over the 2000-2012 period. Our econometric results show that current political leaders’ birth regions receive substantially larger financial ows from China than other regions. On the contrary, when we replicate the analysis for the World Bank, our regressions with region-fixed effects show no evidence of such favoritism. For Chinese and World Bank aid alike, we also find no evidence that African leaders direct more aid to areas populated by groups who share their ethnicity, when controlling for region-fixed effects

A preliminary Theory of Dark Network Resilience

A crucial contemporary policy question for governments across the globe is how to cope with international crime and terrorist networks. Many such “dark” networks—that is, networks that operate covertly and illegally—display a remarkable level of resilience when faced with shocks and attacks. Based on an in-depth study of three cases (MK, the armed wing of the African National Congress in South Africa during apartheid; FARC, the Marxist guerrilla movement in Colombia; and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, in Sri Lanka), we present a set of propositions to outline how shocks impact dark network characteristics (resources and legitimacy) and networked capabilities (replacing actors, linkages, balancing integration and differentiation) and how these in turn affect a dark network's resilience over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for policymakers