Emerging Markets and the Periphery Program

The economic crisis in Europe and the United States has highlighted the rapid rise and internal differentiation of the Global South economies. Why is it that while some developing countries are making only modest advances, others have reached the point that they strongly challenge the industrial prowess of the old North-Atlantic core of the global economy? Is the rise of the BRICS and other emerging economies sustainable, or is it a fragile development that hinges on the commodity boom and cheap credit from international financial sectors?

GEGI  currently has three research programs in this area:

The BRICS

The systemic shock of the Great Recession has called into question the oft-noted convergence of rising economic powers such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs), along with their supposed relationship to the Washington Consensus policy paradigm.   Have the BRICs ‘grown apart’ from both the ideas and the policies prepared for them by Washington-based institutions?  To date, there has been no systematic scholarly effort aimed at analyzing the spread of Washington Consensus ideas and policies in relation to the rise of the BRICs, and GEGI is working to fill this void.

Frontier Economies

Frontier economies are middle-sized developing countries with high, albeit hectic, growth rates, export-oriented sectors with a strong potential and investable but lower market capitalization and liquidity than developed emerging economies. They include economies as diverse as Argentina, Romania, Latvia, Kazakshstan, Morocco or Vietnam. While developed emerging economies have been extensively studied, this category of developing countries remains understudied, a gap that GEGI research hopes to fill.

China’s Global Reach

Since 2000 China has gone from being an insignificant trading partner to the number one trading partner of many Latin American and  Caribbean countries.  Such a trend is similar across the developing world.  GEGI’s China’s Global Reach Program analyzes China’s trade, finance, and investment in Latin America in comparative perspective.  The goal is to draw out policy lessons for Latin American and developing country development policy, for Chinese foreign policy, and for United States foreign economic policy.