New Models for Global Economic Governance
GDAE will continue to develop four research areas that build on its work critiquing economic models of the gains from trade and working to create more policy space for industrial development in global economic governance:
The Shrinking Gains from Trade: Doha Projections Project - GDAE has emerged as the principal resource countering World Bank and other claims that the benefits of developed country proposals in the Doha Round will bring great benefits to the world’s poor. As Doha negotiations continue, GDAE will respond to future projections as they are released.
‘Operationalizing’ Policy Space at the WTO and Beyond – A core element of the developing country critique of the Doha agenda and regional trade agreements is the extent to which proposed changes in the global trade regime will shrink the “policy space” that developing countries have to establish effective policies for sustainable development. While the concept of policy space is now getting attention in academic and some policy circles, developing countries are in need of specific proposals that “operationalize” the concept of policy space in international treaties and frameworks. GDAE continues to work on this issue in collaboration with Southern research institutes.
U.S. Agricultural Policies in a Global Economy – To what extent do U.S. agricultural subsidies enrich U.S. farmers while causing the dumping of agricultural surpluses on the international market, undermining small-scale producers? GDAE's research analyzes the paradox of agricultural subsidies in order to indentify the real sources of overproduction, and the real winners of U.S. agricultural policies – multinational agribusiness corporations. GDAE's "Feeding the Factory Farm Project" documents the “implicit subsidies” going to industrial livestock firms.
Intellectual Property and Global Public Health – New international rules on intellectual property present profound challenges for public health in the developing world. GDAE’s research, under the direction of Kenneth Shadlen, examines how the requirement that all countries grant patents on pharmaceutical products transforms the global generic pharmaceutical industry. The focus is on middle-income countries with more developed generic pharmaceutical sectors. How pharmaceutical sectors in countries such as India, China, Brazil, and Argentina respond to the new international rules on IP will have profound consequences for global public health. Particular attention is paid to the production and supply of generic anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS treatment.
