Pardee Center Launches Project on South-South Economic Relations

The Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future has launched a new project that seeks to study the future of South-South economic relations. The project is led by Prof. Adil Najam (Director, Pardee Center) and Rachel Denae Thrasher (Fellow, Pardee Center).

The project will bring together leading experts from across the world to look at the emerging dynamics of economic – and especially trade – relations amongst developing countries. An experts conference on the subject will be held in September 2010 which will lead to the finalization of an edited book on the subject, expected to be published in 2011.

The premise of the project, and of the eventual book, is that developing countries are increasingly turning to each other to improve their access to global markets. Cooperation of this sort takes many forms. While developing countries have sought new formal trade agreements with one another, they have also broadened existing relationships to incorporate foreign investment and intellectual property protection. At the WTO, the South has bound together to increase bargaining power and liberalize trade on its own terms. The developing world also cooperates in other ways through regional banking and infrastructure projects. There is a growing literature devoted to collaboration efforts among developing countries. This project seeks to draw a comprehensive picture of the future of economic, especially trade, relations among developing countries.

Topics (and confirmed authors) which will be covered in the September conference, and in the final book include:

I. Regional Trade Arrangements

Latin American Trade and Economic Integration
Laura Gomez-Mera (University of Miami)

African Trade and Economic Integration
Eric K. Ogunleye (African Center for Economic Transformation, ACET)

Asian Trade and Economic Integration
Nagesh Kumar (United Nations ESCAP)

Economic Relations Between the GCC and Emerging Asia
Nader Habibi (Brandeis University)

II. South-South Economic Collaboration
Developing Countries in the WTO
Roberto Fiorentino and Matthew Wilson (WTO)

South-South Investment Flows
Mariana Rangel Padilla (Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico)

Trade and Conflict
Shaheen Rafi Khan (Sustainable Development Policy Institute)

Trade and Environment
Kathryn Hochstetler (University of Waterloo)

Role of Key Emerging Economies
Alcides Costa Vaz (University of Brazilia)

III. China in the South

China in Latin America
Kevin P. Gallagher (Boston University)

China in Asia
Mehdi Shafaeddin (University of Neuchatel)

A Beijing Consensus?
Shaun Breslin (University of Warwick)