Year: 2021

2021: Now Accepting Pre and Post-Doctoral Fellow Applications for Global China Initiative Fellowship Program

Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center) seeks applicants for both pre-and post-doctoral fellowships to work on its Global China Initiative (GCI). In addition to receiving support for dissertation and post-dissertation work, fellows will participate in the China initiative’s research projects, seminar series, and policy engagement activities. The energy and climate team is seeking […]

Chart of the Week: Austerity in IMF Agreements, 2001-2018

By Rebecca Ray Austerity – tightening government budgets during an economic downturn – has long been discredited as a recovery strategy. Instead of economic growth, it can lead to lower social spending, hurting the poor at the most difficult time and raising inequality thereafter. Furthermore, it can prolong economic downturns, dooming countries to downward cycles instead of recovery, […]

Emissions Freight: How to Curb CO2 Emissions from International Shipping

By Henrik Selin and Rebecca Dunn If international shipping were a country, it would be the world’s seventh largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions annually. Despite this, CO2 emissions from international shipping are not currently covered by international treaties or domestic policies. This means that these CO2 emissions are largely left outside collective efforts […]

Chinese Lending to Africa Slowed in 2019, But Don’t Rule Out a Revival

By Kevin Acker Chinese loans have become an important source of infrastructure finance for African countries over the past two decades, with Chinese financiers committing approximately $153 billion to African governments and state-owned enterprises between 2000 and 2019. The COVID-19 crisis has introduced new challenges to African borrowers and Chinese financiers, as borrowers negotiate debt […]

Mitigation of CO2 Emissions from International Shipping through National Allocation

International ships carry roughly 90 percent of global trade by volume and produce more CO2 emissions annually than Saudi Arabia, at two percent of of global emissions. Despite this, neither international treaties nor domestic policies control CO2 emissions from international maritime shipping. The industry also does not lend itself to easy governance, as it is […]

GDP Center Roundup – IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings, 2021

By Maureen Heydt The 2020s were meant to be a decade of achieving shared sustainable development and climate goals, but instead began with a global pandemic, creating the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression and pushing upwards of 124 million people pushed into extreme poverty. 2020 was also one of the hottest years on […]

Building Back a Better Financial Safety Net

The year 2021 is year two into the most important decade of the century where drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and inequalities in a manner that raises standards of living is paramount to the survival of the world’s people and planet earth itself. Yet, 2020 saw the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and […]