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The UN has launched the report, “World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) 2010: Retooling Global Development”. The study presents ideas that could become the basis for a new, coherent “toolbox” designed to guide development policies and international cooperation. The survey highlights the need for a strong mechanism for global economic coordination which establishes coherence across all areas of global economic governance.

Among the recommendations the WESS sets out are:

-strengthening government capacities for formulating and implementing national development strategies.

-doing more to ensure that official development assistance is aligned with national priorities.

-strengthening the international trade and financial systems so that countries with limited capabilities can successfully integrate into the global economy.

-creating new mechanisms for dealing with deficiencies.

The full text is available online.

The recent economic rise of China and India has attracted a great deal of attention – and justifiably so. Together, the two countries account for one-fifth of the global economy and are projected to represent a full third of the world’s income by 2025. Yet, many of the views regarding China and India’s market reforms and high growth have been tendentious, exaggerated, or oversimplified. Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay scrutinizes the phenomenal rise of both nations, and demolishes the myths that have accumulated around the economic achievements of these two giants in the last quarter century.

Exploring the challenges that both countries must overcome to become true leaders in the international economy, Pranab Bardhan looks beyond short-run macroeconomic issues to examine and compare China and India’s major policy changes, political and economic structures, and current general performance.

Bardhan investigates the two countries’ economic reforms, each nation’s pattern and composition of growth, and the problems afflicting their agricultural, industrial, infrastructural, and financial sectors. He considers how these factors affect China and India’s poverty, inequality, and environment, how political factors shape each country’s pattern of burgeoning capitalism, and how significant poverty reduction in both countries is mainly due to domestic factors – not global integration, as most would believe. He also shows how authoritarianism has distorted Chinese development while democratic governance in India has been marred by severe accountability failures.

Bardhan is professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and last May came to IESE’s Barcelona campus to speak about this work in a Continuous Education program.

For more information, click here.

You can find this title at IESE’s Library catalog.

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The OECD has just published the Economic Survey of the Netherlands 2010. The report finds that the global crisis has led the country into deep recession, despite a decisive government intervention to support the financial sector and a timely fiscal stimulus. Forecasts show that the recovery is expected to gather pace relatively slowly. The main challenges now are to achieve a smooth exit from stimulus policies and to boost potential growth in an ageing society.

The OECD report highlights several key policy observations:

-The planned fiscal consolidation is a step in the right direction to secure fiscal sustainability.

-The financial crisis and increased longevity are threatening the solvency of the second-pillar pension system.

-For several decades road traffic has increased faster than the expansion of the road network, leading to widespread congestion.

-The housing market is constrained by numerous rigidities, which may hamper geographical labor mobility.

The next Economic Survey of Netherlands will be prepared for 2012.

The full report is available for the IESE community here.

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The OECD report “The Evolution of News and the Internet” provides an in depth-treatment of the global newspaper market and its evolution, with a particular focus on its economics, the development of online news, related opportunities and challenges and policy approaches.

The economic crisis has accelerated structural changes to the media industry. As many as 20 out of 30 OECD countries face declining newspaper readership. Regional and local press have been particularly affected and 2009 was the worst year for OECD newspapers, with the largest declines in the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Canada, and Spain.

The study is designed to provide a platform for further exchange on immediate and longer-term policy development.

The report is available online.

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The OECD has launched its latest Economic Survey of Korea. The country has rebounded strongly from the global recession thanks to buoyant exports and a prompt and effective policy response. The expansion is projected to continue through 2011, allowing the gradual phasing out of fiscal stimulus which is widely viewed as essential for maintaining low public debt levels. Output is projected to growth by just under 6 percent in 2010 and around 5 percent in 2011.

The report recommends that the Republic of Korea now focuses its energies on normalizing interest rates and proposes several policy reforms to help the country achieve sustainable growth. These include:

-Reforming the fiscal sector

-Reforming health and long-term care

-Promoting green growth and addressing global warming

The next edition of the economic Survey of Korea will be prepared for 2012.

IESE community can access the full report here.

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The IMF has just released its annual review of euro area policies, “Concluding Statement of the IMF Mission on Euro-Area Policies”. The international body recommends swift action to restore confidence and growth in Euro Area:

- The pace of fiscal consolidation should be tailored to each country’s needs

- Spurring euro area growth is essential

- Restructuring Europe’s financial system should be accelerated

 Read the full text online.

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The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has released the Economic Report on Africa 2010 (ERA 2010). The study focuses on how African countries can use the lessons provided by the recent global economic crisis to pursue policies which will help them not only to recover from the crisis but also lay the foundation for sustainable, employment-intensive, high-growth-rate economies.

African countries should pay special attention in their development policies to reducing unemployment. ERA 2010 stresses structural transformation through appropriate macroeconomic policies as the mechanism for achieving high employment growth. The report focuses on both short-term countercyclical policies and long-term strategies.

Read the report here.

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The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has launched the report, “Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in an Era of Global Uncertainty: Asia-Pacific Regional Report 2009/10”. The study looks at the state of progress toward achieving the MDGs in the Asia-Pacific region and identifies some of the key challenges while also exploring the possible policy responses that may help guide the region in its efforts to meet them.

The full report is available online

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The OECD, World Trade Organization and the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development have published their second combined report on G20 Trade and Investment Measures. The three organizations have called upon the G20 to resist moves toward protectionism.

The report’s authors caution that the holdings acquired by governments as a response to the crisis may jeopardize governments’ impartiality in policy making and law enforcement. The report covers measures taken or announced by G20 members between September 1, 2009 and mid-February, 2010.

The full report is available on the Web.

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As the crisis winds down, the IMF has warned in a new report, “Exiting from Crisis Intervention Policies,” that it’s time for policymakers to implement strategies for exiting from crisis-related interventions policies. The appropriate timing, pace, and mode of exiting depends on the state of the economy and the health of the financial system.

However, the authors of the report make the following general recommendations:

-Most advanced economies should maintain stimulus in 2010, and begin tightening their belts in 2011 if the recovery proceeds as currently projected.

-Fast-growing emerging markets can start tightening now.

-In some cases, market concerns imply that tightening is needed ahead of recovery.

Read the full-report on the web