Suchergebnisse

La proposition phare de la justice climatique consiste à dire que la transition historique des énergies fossiles à l'énergie propre doit s'accompagner d'une transition vers un ordre social plus égalitaire. Une taxe carbone associée à un dividende carbone versé directement aux citoyens permettrait de réduire nettement nos émissions de carbone au travers d'une véritable politique sociale.

This paper presents an updated methodology for estimation of capital flight, which is applied to the cases of Angola, Côte d'Ivoire and South Africa. The results indicate that the three countries have experienced substantial capital flight over the past four decades, amounting to $103 billion in constant 2018 dollars for Angola (over 1986-2018), $55 billion for Côte d'Ivoire (over 1970- 2018), and $329 billion for South Africa (over 1970-2018). An important mechanism of capital flight is misinvoicing of exports and imports, especially in primary commodities. The fact that these outflows have persisted over a long period indicates that they are driven by fundamental structural and institutional factors pertaining to both the source countries and the global financial system. These outflows have led to the accumulation of massive offshore wealth belonging to the economic and political elites from these countries, even as their populations continue to face deprivation in access to basic services. Capital flight is clearly a major obstacle to development financing that needs to be tackled through coordinated strategies at national and international level.

AbstractMeasures of corporate environmental justice performance can be a valuable tool in efforts to promote corporate social responsibility and to document systematic patterns of environmental injustice. This paper develops such a measure based on the extent to which toxic air emissions from industrial facilities disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities and those on low incomes. Applying the measure to 100 major corporate air polluters in the United States, we find wide variation in the extent of disproportional exposures. In 54 cases, minorities, who represent 31.8% of the US population, bear excess burden; in 15 of these cases, the minority share exceeds half of the total human health impacts from the firm's industrial air pollution. In 66 cases, poor people, who represent 12.8% of the US population, bear excess burden. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

After more than a decade of experience and research on financing arrangements in post conflict countries and fragile states, a consensus has emerged on at least one matter. The core objective is to build effective and legitimate governance structures that secure public confidence through provision of personal security, equal justice and the rule of law, economic well-being, and essential social services including education and health. These governance structures are necessary to ensure that countries do not turn, or turn back, to violence as a means of negotiating state-societal relations. This paper discusses a number of the weaknesses in current financing arrangements for post conflict countries and fragile states, with a focus on Official Development Assistance (ODA). We argue that tensions persist between business-as-usual development policies on the one hand and policies responsive to the demands of peace building on the other. The preferential allocation of aid to 'good performers,' in the name of maximizing its payoff in terms of economic growth, militates against aid to fragile and conflict-affected states. If the aim of aid is redefined to include durable peace, the conventional performance criteria for aid allocation lose much of their force. Compelling arguments can be made for assistance to 'poor performers' if this can help to prevent conflict. Yet the difficulties that initially prompted donors to become more selective in aid allocation remain all too real. Experience has shown that aid can exacerbate problems rather than solving them.

Emissions of toxic air pollutants from industrial facilities pose significant health hazards to neighbouring communities. Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) in Massachusetts have developed "The Toxic 100", a ranking of top corporations operating in the United States based on the total human health risk resulting from this air pollution.

We investigate the determinants of capital flight from 30 sub-Saharan African countries, including 24 countries classified as severely indebted low-income countries, for the period 1970-1996. The econometric analysis reveals that external borrowing is positively and significantly related to capital flight, suggesting that to a large extent capital flight is debt-fueled. We estimate that for every dollar of external borrowing in the region, roughly 80 cents flowed back as capital flight in the same year. Capital flight also exhibits a high degree of persistence in the sense that past capital flight is correlated with current and future capital flight. The growth rate differential between the African country and its OECD trading partners is negatively related to capital flight. We also explore the effects of several other factors - inflation, fiscal policy indicators, the interest rate differential, exchange rate appreciation, financial development, and indicators of the political environment and governance. We discuss the implications of the results for debt relief and for policies aimed at preventing capital flight and attracting private capital held abroad.