Trade and Development Blog

You may have heard or watched on TV  how "Watson," the artificial intelligence system developed by IBM, soundly defeated the reigning human Jeopardy TV show champions in recent contests. In the game of Jeopardy contestants are read an 'answer' and the first to guess the corresponding 'question' wins.  For example, in the 'Olympic Oddities' category Watson was the first to correctly say "What is a leg" given the 'answer'   "it was the anatomical oddity of U.S. gymnast George Eyser, who won a gold medal on the parallel bars in 1904."   Watson's impressive trouncing of humans that everyone considered highly educated experts has led many people to ponder whether we might not in fact be living through the eve of an impressive new technological revolution that may foist a radical new world upon us.  It seems only a matter of time before this kind of technology replaces all kinds of humans.    Until recently many economists w

It's hard not to quote this compact blog post in full: What the average American thinks we spend on foreign aid – Chris Blattman : "27% of the federal budget vs what they think we ought to be spending (=13%) and what we’re actually spending (=0.6%)" [ source ]

Just as we move onto the topic of international public goods and multilateral negotiations on trade and climate, a significant negotiating meeting is happening in Cancun Mexico (this follows on the heels of a meeting in Copenhagen a few years ago). What's being discussed and negotiated is how to put in place a global cap and trade agreement to limit global emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming. Under a cap and trade system a global cap on the amount of emissions (measured say in billions of tons of CO2 gases) is set and tradable emission permits are set equal to that amount. Loosely, if you want no more than say X billion tons of CO2 gas emissions in a year only X billion permits are issued. Each country is allocated a quota of permits, and these are allocated within each country and are made tradable on international markets. Then if say a coal-fired electricity generator has only enough permits for 1000 tons of CO2 gas but it wants to emit 1500 it would h

We've spent plenty of time in class discussing farm subsidies (and export subsidies) and the political economy of their support. Mind you that the following is an opinion piece (by a strongly opinionated Libertarian) and not a news article, but still it had some interesting quotes and numbers: Al Gore's Alcohol Problem: Admits Ethanol Subsidies a Mistake - The Daily Beast : "Last week, Al Gore finally admitted the obvious. The former vice president (and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize) who promoted ethanol in his Oscar-winning film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” said that corn ethanol was a “mistake.” He went further, saying that he supported ethanol production because the first presidential primary is in Iowa, which produces more ethanol than any other state: “I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president,' he said. Gore also said that the “massive subsidies” given to ethanol are not “good policy.” From the same ar

Think you might be interested? Two informational sessions will be held after Thanksgiving: Thursday, December 2, 11am - 12noon - HW 1537 Tuesday, December 6, 5:30 - 6:30pm - HW 1537 The BA/MA program in economics provides economics students at Hunter College to, not only obtain BA and MA degrees in an accelerated fashion, but also to enhance the types of technical skills that are highly valued in private and public sector work environments and at graduate programs in Economics, Public policy, Health, Development and Law.  The accelerated BA/MA in economics offers students at Hunter College the opportunity to earn both BA and MA degrees in roughly the same time that it takes to earn a BA degree. The degree program consists of a minimum of 120 credits, of which at least 95 are undergraduate credits and 30 are graduate credits. For more information go to   http://econ.hunter.cuny.edu/ courses-of-study-1/courses-of- study/ba-ma-in-economics

Chapter 10 of the book analyzes agricultural trade subsidies.  In general trade agreements under the WTO do not raise as many objections to production subsidies as they do to export subsidies (why?).  So which is this?  From today's Financial TImes  The US pumps out a record 37m gallons of ethanol a day, easily surpassing rival Brazil’s sugar-based industry in output. Producers are running out of places to put this ethanol. The US government mandates 12bn gallons in the fuel supply this year, but a decline in American driving and a 10 per cent cap on how much can be blended into motor fuel has created a glut. “The domestic market here in the US is essentially saturated. We are looking for a home for the surplus,” says Geoff Cooper at the Renewable Fuels Association, a US trade group. That home is increasingly abroad. US ethanol exports are more than double those of a year ago, totalling 251m gallons in the nine months through September, government trade data show. The surge comes

It will be competitive but Hunter students have won these before: UNU ONY Internship Vacancy: Feb - Jul 2011   Apply for Feb-Jul 2011 UNU-ONY Junior Fellows Internship                               Deadline: 30 November, 2010 Dear colleague, The United Nations University Office at the United Nations in New York (UNU-ONY) is recruiting interns for the next session, from 1 February to 31 July 2011. Participants in UNU-ONY's internship programme are called Junior Fellows as the title reflects their combination of academic excellence and professional aptitude. In the following paragraph you will find information and guidelines on the UNU-ONY's Junior Fellows internship programme, or feel free to visit our website,  http://www.ony.unu.edu/ internships/ . Please circulate this announcement to students, colleagues and friends who may be interested in participating in the programme or in disseminating this great opportunity to young professionals. The deadline for rece