Category: Global Economy

Using Minsky to Better Understand Economic Development – Part 1

The global system has seen two major shocks in 2016: the Brexit vote and Trump. What these events have in common is their populist rhetoric that promised to bring back jobs. These elections have tapped into growing anxiety over job security, which has not been addressed by most governments and has given room for demagogues to tap into the anger of the people. They reflect a problem that transcends the boundaries of any single nation: the global economy has been in a slump for almost a decade. Governments need to create jobs, and public fiscal stimulus is the way to do so. To allow it, we must rethink that system.

To understand why we have to consider the international system in which nation states currently operate in. Its current characteristics present challenges for developed and developing economies alike. There are two important features to consider: first, the system creates a deflationary bias by requiring recessionary adjustments and hoarding of the international mean of payment (i.e. dollars). Second, it lacks mechanisms to offset the chronic surpluses and deficits between nations, thus breeding financial instability. In a nutshell, it leads to poor creation and distribution of demand that is managed through capital flows. Instead of propping up demand, the global economic system props up debt.

This post will be split into two parts. This first part will employ the theories of Hyman Minsky to explain the features of our current global economy. Next week, we will follow up to discuss an alternative system that would allow for a better distribution of demand among countries and would support emerging economies’ development by freeing them from the swings of international markets.

In his Financial Instability Hypothesis, Minsky addresses the ability of a company to honor its debt commitments. Companies can finance investment through previously retained earnings (internal funds) and/or by borrowing (external funds). If retained earnings prove to be insufficient, and the company comes more and more reliant on borrowed funds, the company’s balance sheet structure shifts from being stable to unstable. As presented in a previous post on this blog, Minsky described this process as moving from a stable “hedge” profile to a riskier “speculative” profile, and finally to a dangerous “Ponzi” profile.

Similarly, a country has three ways in which it can meet its debt commitments denominated in foreign currency: i) by obtaining foreign exchange through current account surpluses; ii) by using the stock of international reserves (obtained through previous current account surpluses); and iii) by obtaining access to foreign savings, i.e. borrowing. The first characterizes a hedge financial profile in which the cash inflows are sufficient to pay the foreign currency denominated liabilities. Any mismatch between inflows and outflows can be covered by reserves (its cushion of safety) or by borrowing; while the former can still characterize a hedge profile – as long as the cushion of safety is big enough to cover the shortfall for the necessary period of time – the latter is said to be speculative. In other words, the country borrows to cover a mismatch with the expectation that future revenues will be used to meet those debt obligations.

A situation in which further rounds of borrowing are necessary to meet those commitments is by definition a Ponzi scheme. It can only be sustained over time if it manages to keep fooling investors to continue to lend. Once a greater fool is not found and financial flows are reversed, the economy collapses in a Fisher-type debt deflation: as assets are liquidated to meet those financial obligations, their prices fall and the debt burden becomes increasingly heavier. The case of a country is different from a company, where outflows are often accurately expected, and it commonly leads to massive capital flight, currency devaluation, fall in public bond prices and increase in its premiums (i.e. interest rate payments). This last point illustrates the implications of accumulating foreign liabilities – reserves included – and implies the growth of negative net financial flows from borrowers to creditors through debt servicing. In general, from developing to developed countries.

The adjustment process punishes the borrower much harder than the lender. Greece presents a clear example. For the borrowing country, the standard imposed remedy is austerity: curtail of imports and public expenditure in order to forcefully meet those debts. Or, more often, to stir up enough confidence and access additional financial resources from private investors; in other words, continuing the Ponzi financing. Even in a case where interest payments on the borrowed funds are lower than the rate of capital inflow, the stock of debt would still expand, increasing financial fragility. A development strategy dependable on increasing usage of foreign savings is thus not feasible.

Of course, economic development is an extremely broad subject and we sure don’t want to commit the mistake of suggesting a “one-size-fits-it-all” policy a la neoliberal disciples. Nonetheless, a common issue for many developing economies is the lack of complexity and variety of its production structure – heavily dependent on primary goods – and the low price-elasticity of demand for its exports, which means that shifts in prices (exchange rate) do not do much to stimulate exports (increasing demand). As such, price adjustments might not always work as expected. This is one of the rationales behind the familiar “import substitution industrialization” strategy that tragically seems to have become the case for the UK and US.

These common characteristics affect the ability of emerging economies to face both up- and downswings of the international economy with countercyclical policies. While international liquidity is abundant in booming periods, it becomes extremely scarce during the slumps. Both capital floods and flights can be domestically disruptive for a developing economy, affecting its employment and output level, solvency, and – ultimately, its sovereign power. With scarce demand and international liquidity, the indebted economy falls into the debt-deflation spiral: it has to incur in a recession big enough to collapse imports at a faster rate than exports thus generating surpluses to clear off debt.

It should be clear that besides being completely inefficient – as opposed to the argument commonly used by “free-the-capital” defenders – the current economic system does little to stimulate demand. It is quite the contrary. Notwithstanding, after almost 10 years after the financial crisis, the world economy is still suffering the consequences of economic “freedom,” and the fighting tool has focused excessively on monetary rather than fiscal policy. Instead of cooperation, we are prone to have currency wars, protectionism, “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies and chronic debt accumulation.

These points of criticism are not novel, but they do deserve more of our attention. The same applies to their solutions, which are the focus of Part 2 of this article.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trade Deals and Income Inequality

When Oxfam’s 2016 Davos Report revealed that 62 people own half of the global wealth many were shocked by this finding and attributed it to high poverty levels in low-income countries. However, wealth inequality is also a problem in rich countries like the US. The OECD found that the wealthiest 10% of US households own 76% of the total wealth, while those at the bottom 40% of the distribution have no wealth at all. To make matters worse, the 2008 Great Recession wiped out the wealth of many American families, and they failed to regain it in the ensuing recovery. Research done by Levy Institute’s Pavlina Tcherneva found that in the aftermath of the Great Recession, real incomes of those in the bottom 90% of the US income distribution have fallen, while those in the top 10% have enjoyed all the gains of the recovery.

These trends are the result of neoliberal “free-market” policies implemented since the 80s, which emphasized tax cuts, deregulation, and weakening of labor protections, all under the guise of increasing efficiency. Trade deals, while not the sole culprit, have played an important part in the downward pressure on wages for American workers and the loss of numerous domestic manufacturing jobs. The rise in global trade has created severe competition for many American workers, many of whom have lost their jobs or been forced to accept pay cuts. Trade agreements put in place by the US offer corporations the necessary legal protections to safely relocate their business overseas. While proponents of trade agreements continue to insist these will create new jobs for American workers, the opposite has been true. For example, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that almost 700,000 jobs have been lost as result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), despite it promising to create 200,000 new jobs for American workers.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement between 12 countries, which together make up for 40% of world trade, is considered by Obama a key element of his legacy and follows a “pro-market” approach similar to most policies of the neoliberal era. This pact will eliminate tariffs, and impose and enforce stronger patent protections overseas while also reducing restrictions for tech companies to enter foreign markets. Obama’s administration promises the deal will “level the playing field for American workers & American businesses,” and “strengthen the American middle class.” However, a closer reading of the provisions of the agreement offers a different interpretation. The TPP will strengthen the power of multinational corporations, expand their influence over governments, and increase profit margins at the expense of American workers.

Amongst the most concerning provisions of the TPP is one that gives corporations an easy path towards suing governments and thus undermining their sovereignty. The treaty agrees to establish an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), through which corporations can challenge domestic laws in countries that are part of the TPP. These challenges would be resolved through arbitration, rather than traditional courts. The arbitration process is led by panels composed of three corporate lawyers, only one of whom is government appointed. As Elizabeth Warren warned in this Op-Ed, the provision “would allow big multinationals to weaken labor and environmental rules.”

Those arguing in favor of the TPP claim it will allow the US to write the rules on how trade with Asia should be conducted. Yet this argument fails to mention that it’s American corporate interests that will write the rules. Free trade with the countries participating in the TPP is already established, and this agreement does not open up new opportunities for trade; rather it sets the terms in favor of business interests. The TPP will further erode bargaining power of American workers, who will face increased legal scrutiny over protections they enjoy. By solidifying the legal power corporations enjoy abroad, the agreement will facilitate smooth relocation and outsourcing of more and more jobs. This additional threat to job security for American workers will increase downward pressure on their wages, while the profits of corporations will grow, thus upholding the trend of rising income inequality. It is not a coincidence that as the global influence of corporations increases, so does disparity of wealth.

The positive impacts the TPP might have on the economy would be absorbed by the wealthy, while average American workers would suffer the negative consequences. The TPP protects large multinational corporations; yet offer few safeguards for lower-skilled domestic workers. Overall, it is reasonable to argue that the TPP would only further exacerbate income inequality by tilting the balance even further in favor of big companies. However, it is also unrealistic to argue that by rejecting the TPP and other trade agreements the US can bring back all the manufacturing jobs it lost.

American policymakers need to realize that it is vital to draft agreements that take into account the needs of working people, and not just of corporations; that there is an active need for policies that can once again strengthen the American middle class. Otherwise, the discontent of workers who continue to see their incomes decline and job prospects worsen will allow fringe candidates such as Donald Trump, who foster racist and xenophobic rhetoric, to rise to power. Although the solutions offered by Trump make little economic sense, he gains in popularity by recognizing that American workers have been disadvantaged by various trade deals.

It is urgent for policymakers to stop pushing for policies that expand income inequality, and to look for strategies to reverse this trend. In the late 1970s full employment was abandoned as a policy goal, labor protections were eroded, finance deregulated, and taxes for the wealthy reduced. Seeing the consequences of these changes in the falling living standards of most Americans and exploding income inequality, it is time to take action and work to rolling back these policies. Pushing for more agreements amongst those same lines, such as the TPP, will only make matters worse.

By Lara Merling
Illustration by Heske van Doornen

Class Interests & Discordant Politics: Brexit & the Trump Campaign

The shortcomings and false promises of mainstream economics are impossible to ignore in the context of the Brexit vote and Trump’s success in the Republican primaries, with working and middle class individuals in both the UK and the US clinging to some promise of socio-economic salvation. Lately, we’ve seen an especially pronounced disconnect between political parties and the social classes they respectively govern. These instances of political manipulation have similar dynamics: the key is to cultivate an image of the far right’s intentions that suggest they are aligned with class interests, only to pursue methods that further marginalize their own supporters. And when their policies inevitably fail and it’s time to place blame, who bears the brunt of it all? Immigrants.

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But, I digress. Let’s talk neoliberal restructuring to set the stage. You know, that period that began in the 70’s where the US and the UK experienced pronounced economic stagnation. When stagflation set in, who better to blame than those damn liberals and the economic policies of the welfare state they induced (am I right, Reagan)? The resentful rhetoric propagated by Reagan and Thatcher suggested that such policies created “welfare queens” looking to loot the government for all they’ve got (just when mainstream economics had me convinced these were the self-interested economic actors dreamed up by the neoclassical synthesis). The ascent of conservative capitalism- in the US under Reagan and George Bush Sr. and in the UK under Thatcher- meant tax cuts, the erosion of labor unions, and new regulations imposed on the economy. These economic regime changes were based on the mainstream theoretical presupposition that what we really needed to do was create an economic environment conducive to unbarred corporate innovation and investment and eagerly accept international policy which, together, opened the proverbial floodgates allowing neoliberalism to leak all over the globe. What a mess.

Free trade agreements, like The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and the emergence of the World Trade Organization allowed labor and capital mobility across borders. Interestingly, the majority of Democrats and Labor party folks alike took no issue with such policies-not under Clinton, not under Blair, not even under Obama. Obama, in fact, unfortunately followed the policy-tide of the bank-bailout Bush administration- the very administration that watched middle and working class American homeowners drown financially (but sure, save the banks)- before him. Post-2008 financial crisis, Obama supported the Trans Pacific Partnership, which certainly aids the perpetuation and spread of Neoliberalist influence. While Obama has made modest strides in terms of challenging the Neoliberal economic scheme- enduring the constant stymie of the republican party- his approaches to socio-economic issues have been predominantly market centered (e.g., Dodd Frank, ACA, etc.). The economic and political quintessence of neoliberalism remains unfettered. As a parallel, the Labor Party actively attempted to defend minorities, but did very little to keep the UK in the EU and have also struggled to directly address neoliberalism.

Unfortunately, the general population of U.S. and the dominant political parties of Europe have bought the story of neoliberalism told by our paternalistic politicians. They convinced the majority that the continuation of this approach is what’s best for them. Meanwhile, the working class suffered and the middle class disappeared; but how? Aren’t we all being provided the greatest possible economic good? Mainstream preachers of Pareto Optimality – a scenario where economic actors can improve their position without disadvantaging/compromising the position of another economic actor- imply the changes that come out of neoliberalism (that of the economic structure, the promotion of free trade and globalization, etc.) should be “efficient;” the loss of some jobs in domestic goods production would be neutralized by the trade stimulus, right?

Wrong. The myth of trickle-down economics proved itself, well, mythological. We’ve seen surging inequality, static wage growth over the last four decades, and disappearing jobs in manufacturing (a 37% decrease in the number of manufacturing jobs since 1979, as per the BLS). These are all hindrances to working and middle class Americans. They paid for neoliberal restructuring only to be denied the prospect of economic security and benefit which induced them to submit to such a socio-economic and political climate.

At the same time, we watched Bush and Blair start politically chaos with Bush’s War on Terror- again, an unrequested paternalistic move that subverted and unsettled the Middle East (note: not a monolith) and provoked an occidental response (well, duh), thus designing an ideal birthplace for ISIS. We’ve seen the Syrian crisis displace millions of Syrians- refugees sprawled across European nations with unequal access to livelihood.

Trump enters the race (and unfortunately the hearts of far too many Americans) and Britain exits the EU. We’ve seen neoliberalism literally create the “problem” Trump has convinced many Americans we have; Mexico’s economic instability is arguably due to the effects of NAFTA and to escape poverty, many immigrate to the US in search of employment. Low-skill working class whites perceive additional threats to their already delicate economic standing-posed by people of color at that- and suddenly the existing issues built by neoliberalist restructuring are not the problem.

The Leave campaign and Trump have hacked the interests of UK and US low-skilled working class white individuals, who blame immigrants for their job losses. These individuals really lost their jobs because of neoliberalist restructuring as free trade moved manufacturing jobs overseas, while simultaneously causing economic insecurity in nations like Mexico, thereby motivating immigration. By creating and playing on the sentimentalism attached to xenophobia, patriotism/nationalism, religion, racism, and lack of economic confidence (all bound up with one another, by the way) caused by neoliberalist restructuring, Trump and the UK’s Independence Party became the “saviors” with class interests at the heart of their intentions. This is undoubtedly a self-reinforcing mechanism. Their manipulation continues to reap them undue success and secure mass appeal. It is only suitable that the last 30-40 years of the Right wing utilizing racism and the conflict between traditionalist and progressive values has culminated into the likes of a Trump candidacy and the Leave campaign. These are merely the current guise of the neoliberal economic agenda, still hell-bent on toiling any hope for socio-economic equity.

The moral of the story? If we, presumably progressives and proponents of heterodoxy, seek to challenge the social constructions which contribute to economic instability, rising inequality, unjust wage structure, and a labor force altered by free trade like racism and harmful traditionalist notions, we cannot let the underlying perpetuity of neoliberalism go unaddressed. Working and middle class individuals will only continue to act against their class interests. Workers will continue to feel hopeless. Wages will continue to stagnate and jobs to disappear. This cycle will continue as long as we allow a power-serving social, economic, and political climate- that says rejecting the establishment in the form of racism, xenophobia, and overt nationalism is the solution to their problems- to persist.

Written by Daniella Medina
Illustrations by Heske van Doornen

Carbon Trading, Sustainable Development and Financial Fragility

The response to climate change is one of the most pressing policy issues of our time. Carbon trading assets are currently worth more than $100 billion. This market is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2020. In Stabilizing an Unstable Economy Hyman Minsky notes that the markets for financial assets are inherently unstable, leading to the cyclical behavior of the economic system. How effective then are market-based solutions to solving climate change? It might just be that carbon markets have not reduced environmental instability and may increase financial instability of the entire economic system.

The core of carbon trading isnot trading of physical GHGs, but the trading of the right to emit GHGs and the unit of account is a ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). The carbon market stems from the Kyoto Protocol, and its specifics are target of discussion as scholars debate about the legal characteristics of the carbon unit. Some countries view it as a commodity while others see it as a monetary currency.

Under the Kyoto Protocol trading mechanisms were made up of three types: international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and Joint Implementation (JI). The European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is the world’s largest carbon market. According to the 2016 ICAP worldwide emissions report, there are 17 emissions trading systems operating around the world, which are currently pricing more than four billion tons of GHG emissions. In 2017, two new systems will be launched: China and Ontario, the former will become the largest of such systems, and will drive worldwide coverage of ETSs to reach seven billion tons of emissions by 2017.

Voluntary markets exchanges (carbon markets outside the Kyoto) are also on the rise because they make trading, hedging and risk management easier by providing liquidity. Furthermore, they develop sophisticated financial instruments such as CER futures, options, and swaps, which will help establish a price forecast for carbon. Some of these markets are the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), Multi-Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), and Asian Carbon Trade Exchange.

Sustainable Development

From their foundation, carbon markets have failed to address the underlying root causes of climate change. They divert money from technological investment that will actually reduce the use of fossil fuels towards the financial markets. Furthermore, they are causing instability in the environment through the use of carbon offsets, which have caused massive green grabs to occur in the global South, and through outsourcing emissions to developing nations. Carbon offsets were created by Kyoto to describe emissions reductions projects that are not covered by an ETS. For instance, tree plantations, fuel switches, wind farms, hydroelectric dams…etc.

The world’s richest have over-consumed the planet to the brink of ecological disaster. Instead of reducing emissions within their own countries, they have created a carbon dump in poorer regions. As such, emissions trading system represent the world’s greatest privatization of a natural asset.  The Kyoto protocol is set up in a way that carbon sink projects (forests, oceans, etc.) are only accepted when people with official status manage them. Hence, it expands the potential for neocolonial land-grabbing to occur. Rainforest inhabited by indigenous people will only qualify as “managed” under the Kyoto when they are run by the state or a registered private company.

Furthermore, carbon trading has also failed to reduce global GHGs emissions. When a country claims to have reduced its carbon emissions, one must question whether it is by adopting low-carbon technologies, like how Sweden used well-crafted public policies and market incentives to decarbonization, or by outsourcing its emissions to another country, most likely to developing nations. For example, the Chinese government has questioned whether the emissions coming out of Chinese smokestacks were really ‘Chinese’ or should they be accounted to those in Western countries who are consuming Chinese goods or are owned by joint venues with developed countries. The question arose because Europe claimed that it was making progress on climate change based on tabulating the physical locations of molecules. Larry Lohmann phrased it perfectly when he said that Europe’s statistical claim “[conceal[s] an important fact that it has offshored much of its emissions [to China].” Take the UK, it has not in fact reduced its emissions it merely offshored one-third of its emissions by not accounting for emissions of imported goods and international travel.

Carbon markets have had many fraudulent activities within them. In 2002, the UK had a trial emissions trading scheme worth £215 million, which resulted in fraud. Three chemical corporations had been given £93 million in incentives when they had already met their reduction target. Another famous fraudulent activity revolved around international offset projects whereby companies would create GHGs just to destroy them and make money off of the credits.

 

As nature is being commodified and privatized,the current policies for sustainable development, under the guise of conservation, are alienating the poor from their means of livelihood by securing resources for organizations. These indigenous people — land users — are seen as needing to be saved from their primitive ways and to be educated on utilizing sustainable development within the bounds of the market. If it sounds like colonialism that is because it is.

For example, there exists specific types of green grabs known as conservation enclosures where the market is seen as the best way to conserve biodiversity. Hence, authorities are privatizing, commercializing and commoditizing nature at an alarming rate through payment for ecosystem services to wildlife derivatives. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral treaty set up at the 1992 UN Earth Summit has a target the protection of 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas. For instance, Conservation International (CI) pushed the government of Madagascar to protect 10 percent of its territory, while in Mozambique a British company negotiated a lease with the government for 19 percent of the country’s land. President Elizabeth Sirleaf Johnson of Liberia called for the extradition of a British businessman accused of bribery over a $2.2 billion carbon offsetting deal. The deal was to lease one-fifth of Liberia’s forests, which account for 32 percent of its land. In Uganda, a Norwegian company leased land for a carbon sink project, which evicted 8,000 people in 13 villages.

In Oxfam Australia’s 2016 report on land grabs, palm oil has become “responsible for large-scale deforestation, extensive carbon emissions and the critical endangerment of species… India, China and the European Union (EU) are the largest consumers of palm oil globally.” The European Union’s renewable energy policy being a significant driver of global palm oil demand due to its aim to source 10 percent of transport energy from renewable sources by 2020, which has increased its palm oil usage by 365 percent.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon that is stored in forests. It is used to justify green grabbing and is expected to be one of the biggest land grabs in history. By using REDD+ as a conservation mechanism and a financial stream, “the CDB is both legitimating the commodity of carbon itself and helping to create the market for its trade.” The CDB is forming new nature markets along with new nature derivatives whereby investors speculate on future values encompassed in, for instance, species extinction like that of tigers.

Financial Fragility

Hyman Minsky was fully aware that a capitalist system was a monetary system with financial institutions that were prone to instability. Minsky is famous for saying that the strength of capitalism is that it comes in at least 57 varieties. The last and current stage is Money Manager Capitalism, which was made up off highly levered profit- seeking organizations like that of money market mutual funds, mutual funds, sovereign wealth funds, and private pension funds. The financial instability hypothesis argues that the internal dynamics of capitalist economies over time give rise to financial structures, which are prone to debt deflations, the collapse of asset values, and deep depressions. Minsky has always warned, “Stability is Destabilizing.”

Money managers act as agents. They pursue short-term profits by trading instruments that are not easily verifiable, which makes fraud likely possible in carbon markets. The dramatic rise in securitization has opened up national boundaries leading to the internationalization of finance. Securitization within the carbon markets increases the risk of leading to boom-bust cycles. At present, speculators are the major players in carbon trading and their dominance in carbon markets is growing at an alarming rate. Financialization is an important precondition for the rise and operation of carbon offsets. The financial innovation in this scheme is that it uses nature itself as a financial instrument. Moreover, it is selling nature to save it and then saving nature to trade it.

‘Green bonds’ are carbon assets that are sold to the Northern hemisphere, backed by Southern land and Southern public funds. Lohmann shares that financial speculation of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are at least based on specifiable mortgages on actual houses while climate commodity or subprime carbon cannot be specified, quantified, or verified even in principle. Even conservatives and Republicans have said, “if you like credit default swaps, you’re going to love carbon derivatives.” It has become apparent that carbon markets are not only driven by trade, but also by speculation. Carbon derivatives are growing at a fast rate as speculators are moving from other assets towards carbon. Whereas once investors bet on the collapse of the US housing market, there are some traders who are betting on the collapse of the carbon credit market.

As more investors, specifically hedge funds, enter the carbon markets, they increase market volatility and create an asset bubble or ‘carbon bubble’. Money managers by acting as agents trade carbons and increase financial fragility. Their income is driven by assets under management and short-term rates of return. Hence if they miss the benchmark, they will lose their clients. So they act on short profit bases by taking risky positions, and carbon trading provides those risks. In brief, using Minsky’s theory, we can predict with confidence that the carbon market is inherently unstable and that in addition to its not achieving its goal of reducing emissions, it is also heading to a financial disaster.

Even though Minsky pushed for regulation when it came to financial markets, regulating carbon markets will not solve the problem. Tighter regulation of carbon markets, particularly secondary and derivative markets is just a Band-Aid solution and will fail to affect fundamental change. Financial markets have had to be bailed out again and again. However, as a British Climate Camp activist said “nature doesn’t do bailouts.” On a global scale, GHG emissions have gone up. There is an offshoring of emissions. The best policy would be eliminating offsets, specifically from the developing world. Furthermore, there needs to be policies that encourage low-carbon technology as used in Sweden. Another policy recommendations would be a harmonized carbon tax.

Written by Mariamawit F. Tadesse
Illustrations by Heske van Doornen