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Biodiversity threats from Red Lists are linked with patterns of international trade, identifying the ultimate instigators of the threats; developed countries tend to be net importers of implicated commodities, driving biodiversity decline in developing countries. The biodiversity cost of international trade This study develops a global model linking threatened-species records published in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List to worldwide industries causing these threats through the production of commodities such as agricultural crops and timber. Close to one-third of global species threats are due to international trade, according to this model. The resulting 'biodiversity footprint' reveals how consumers in developed countries drive species threats in developing countries. The United States, European Union and Japan emerge as the main final destinations of biodiversity-implicated commodities, with the coffee, rubber, cocoa, palm oil, fisheries and forestry industries among the most destructive. Human activities are causing Earth’s sixth major extinction event 1 —an accelerating decline of the world’s stocks of biological diversity at rates 100 to 1,000 times pre-human levels 2 . Historically, low-impact intrusion into species habitats arose from local demands for food, fuel and living space 3 . However, in today’s increasingly globalized economy, international trade chains accelerate habitat degradation far removed from the place of consumption. Although adverse effects of economic prosperity and economic inequality have been confirmed 4 , 5 , the importance of international trade as a driver of threats to species is poorly understood. Here we show that a significant number of species are threatened as a result of international trade along complex routes, and that, in particular, consumers in developed countries cause threats to species through their demand of commodities that are ultimately produced in developing countries. We linked 25,000 Animalia species threat records from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List to more than 15,000 commodities produced in 187 countries and evaluated more than 5 billion supply chains in terms of their biodiversity impacts. Excluding invasive species, we found that 30% of global species threats are due to international trade. In many developed countries, the consumption of imported coffee, tea, sugar, textiles, fish and other manufactured items causes a biodiversity footprint that is larger abroad than at home. Our results emphasize the importance of examining biodiversity loss as a global systemic phenomenon, instead of looking at the degrading or polluting producers in isolation. We anticipate that our findings will facilitate better regulation, sustainable supply-chain certification and consumer product labelling.

Traditional consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions accounting attributed the gap between consumption-based and production-based emissions to international trade. Yet few attempts have analyzed the temporal deviation between current emissions and future consumption, which can be explained through changes in capital stock. Here we develop a dynamic model to incorporate capital stock change in consumption-based accounting. The new model is applied using global data for 1995–2009. Our results show that global emissions embodied in consumption determined by the new model are smaller than those obtained from the traditional model. The emissions embodied in global capital stock increased steadily during the period. However, capital plays very different roles in shaping consumption-based emissions for economies with different development characteristics. As a result, the dynamic model yields similar consumption-based emissions estimation for many developed countries comparing with the traditional model, but it highlights the dynamics of fast-developing countries. Traditional carbon accounting attributes gap between consumption- and production-based emissions to international trade. The authors develop a dynamic model that incorporates capital stock change and find it improves estimates for fast-developing countries.

International trade affects CO 2 emissions by redistributing production activities to places where the emission intensities are different from the place of consumption. This study focuses on the net emission change as the result of the narrowing gap in emission intensities between the exporter and importer. Here we show that the relocation of production activities from the global North (developed countries) to the global South (developing countries) in the early 2000s leads to an increase in global emissions due to the higher emission intensities in China and India. The related net emissions are about one-third of the total emissions embodied in the South-North trade. However, the narrowing emission intensities between South-North and the changing trade patterns results in declining net emissions in trade in the past decade. The convergence of emission intensities in the global South alleviates concerns that increasing South-South trade would lead to increased carbon leakage and carbon emissions. The mitigation opportunity to green the supply chain lies in sectors such as electricity, mineral products and chemical products, but calls for a universal assessment of emission intensities and concerted effort. International trade redistributes production activities to regions with varying emission intensities. This study finds that the convergence of emission intensities between the global South - North and changes in trade patterns have resulted in declining net emissions in trade in the past decade.

The effects of globalization on economy and society are highly contested subjects in academic and political arenas. This study brings an empirical perspective to the crucially important arguments that encapsulate the major debates in this area. Using quantitative data, this book addresses the shape and degree of internationalisation by focussing on the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and democracy on economic development and the effects of economic internationalisation on democracy. The author examines democracy's effects on economic growth and considers the claim that foreign capital has a detrimental effect on democracy to show that FDI in fact plays a supporting role for democracy and creates higher growth rates than domestic capital. From these results the author suggests that policy makers should seek to encourage globalization by ensuring open access to products from poorer countries, encouraging private investment within poorer countries and that such countries should concentrate on building up human and institutional capital to attract investment. Chapter 1 The Contours of Globalization Chapter 2 Globalization and Development: Theory Old and New Chapter 3 Globalization and Growth Empirics Chapter 4 Democracy and Growth: Theory Old and New Chapter 5 Empirics of Democracy and Growth and Growth of Democracy Chapter 6 Assessing Globalization's Correlates and Concomitants Indra de Soysa is Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Germany and leads a research group on 'Democracy, Rule of Law and Governance'. He has recently published articles in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, American Sociological Review , the Journal of Peace Research , and Global Environmental Politics and a number of book chapters in edited volumes. His research primarily centres on such issues as democratisation, political economy of violence and the effects of globalization on the economy and society.

PurposeA wide urban–rural income gap exists in China despite the implementation of pro-rural policies. Additionally, with the proliferation of the internet and information technology, the promotion effect of e-commerce on the economy has become apparent. Accordingly, China has been actively encouraging rural households to participate in e-commerce activities. This study aims to examine the effect of e-commerce on the urban–rural income gap.Design/methodology/approachIn the study, linear and panel threshold models were applied to provincial-level panel data from 2002 to 2018.FindingsThe results of the linear model show that e-commerce contributes to narrowing the urban–rural income gap. Moreover, the panel threshold model results show that the narrowing effect exists in regions where the e-commerce intensity is at a medium-to-high level and urbanization is at a relatively low level; otherwise, e-commerce has no effect. In addition, in regions with a relatively high level of public expenditure and education, the income-gap-narrowing effect of e-commerce is more than double.Practical implicationsThe urban–rural income gap can be reduced by promoting e-commerce and reducing the urban–rural divide in e-commerce use.Originality/valueTo determine how varying levels of e-commerce development affect the urban–rural income gap across regions, the study proposes four key causes of the digital divide in e-commerce: e-commerce intensity, public expenditure level, urbanization level and education level and applies the variables as threshold variables to examine the non-linear effect of e-commerce on the income gap.

This book is a major contribution exploring the policy options available for developing and emerging economies in response to the global economic crises. Written by a highly respected development economist, the book gives a clear-eyed account of the issues particular to these countries and critically evaluates different policy approaches, including reforms in financial, monetary and trade policies. Informed by deep scholarship as well as practical experience, Yilmaz Akyuz draws on empirical data, historical context and theoretical expertise, with special attention paid to issues such as the role of the International Monetary Fund and China. The Financial Crisis and the Global South is a landmark book that will be of interest to practitioners, scholars, theorists and students of economics and development studies.

Today's wide economic gap between the postindustrial countries of the West and the poorer countries of the third world is not new. Fifty years ago, the world economic order--two hundred years in the making--was already characterized by a vast difference in per capita income between rich and poor countries and by the fact that poor countries exported commodities (agricultural or mineral products) while rich countries exported manufactured products. In Trade and Poverty, leading economic historian Jeffrey G. Williamson traces the great divergence between the third world and the West to this nexus of trade, commodity specialization, and poverty. The world rapidly became global between the early nineteenth century and World War I, and the global trade boom occurred simultaneously with rising economic divergence between industrial and nonindustrial countries. Analyzing the role of specialization, de-industrialization, and commodity price volatility with econometrics and case studies of India, Ottoman Turkey, and Mexico, Williamson demonstrates why the close correlation between trade and poverty emerged. Globalization and the great divergence were causally related, and thus the rise of globalization over the past two centuries helps account for the income gap between rich and poor countries today.

Globalization of seafood markets raises concerns about nutritional insecurity, as developing countries export nutrient-dense seafood to developed countries. However, imported seafood may offset nutritional losses from exports. Developing countries import seafood with low prices relative to developed countries, raising questions of whether low-price imports provide less nutrition and contribute to nutritional insecurity. We construct a dataset connecting country-level seafood trade flows to product-specific data on nutrient concentrations to investigate how the seafood trade affects nutritional affordability. We compare nutrient density per dollar in imported seafood. Across three macronutrients and six micronutrients and using six distinct classifications of development status, we consistently find that developing countries pay lower prices for nutrition in imported seafood than developed countries. We show that the nutritional bargain for developing countries partly reflects differences in the non-nutritional characteristics of seafood imports between developed and developing countries, including the extent of processing and product form. Despite exporting nutrient-rich seafood, developing countries import seafood with higher nutrient density per dollar than developed nations. These nutritional bargains are linked to differences in processing and product forms of traded seafood.

The 2017 WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for Children (EMLc) groups antibiotics as Access, Watch, or Reserve, based on recommendations of their use as first-choice and second-choice empirical treatment for the most common infections. This grouping provides an opportunity to review country-level antibiotic consumption and a potential for stewardship. Therefore, we aimed to review 2015 levels of oral antibiotic consumption by young children globally. We analysed wholesale antibiotic sales in 70 middle-income and high-income countries in 2015. We identified oral antibiotic formulations appropriate for use in young children (defined as child-appropriate formulations [CAFs]) using wholesale data from the IQVIA-Multinational Integrated Data Analysis System database, and we estimated 2015 antibiotic consumption in reference to the 2017 WHO EMLc Access, Watch, Reserve (AWaRe) antibiotic groups. We used three metrics for assessment of intra-country patterns: access percentage, defined as the number of CAF standard units of Access antibiotics divided by the total number of CAF standard units; amoxicillin index, defined as the number of amoxicillin CAF standard units divided by the total number of CAF standard units; and access-to-watch index, defined as the ratio of Access-to-Watch CAF standard units. The overall median volume of CAF antibiotic standard units sold in 2015 per country was 74·5 million (IQR 12·4–210·7 million). The median access percentage among the 70 countries was 76·3% (IQR 62·6–84·2). The amoxicillin index was low (median 30·7%, IQR 14·3–47·3). The median access-to-watch index was 6·0 (IQR 3·1–9·8). CAF antibiotic consumption patterns were highly variable between the 70 countries, without a clear difference between high-income and middle-income countries. Antibiotics in the Access group have a key role in treating young children globally. A simple combination of metrics based on the AWaRe groups can be informative on individual countries' patterns of antibiotic consumption and stewardship opportunities. These metrics could support countries in the development of programmes to improve access to core Access antibiotics, particularly amoxicillin. Global Antibiotic R&D Partnership (German Federal Ministry of Health, Médecins Sans Frontières, Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, and UK Department for International Development).