UNCTAD Trade And Development Report 2021

This year’s trade and development report is out, and it says Chapters 1 and 2 only but for some reason, the full report hasn’t been released yet. Maybe it only has two chapters.

The report warns of “unfavourable conditions for most developing regions” (Section 2.C.3).

There is an interesting projection of current account balances with explanations around this scenario leading to the pessimism.

UNCTAD Trade And Development Report, 2020

UNCTAD has released its annual trade and development report.

It emphasises the importance of Keynesianism and cites Post-Keynesian authors such as Joan Robinosn, Nicholas Kaldor, Wynne Godley, Francis Cripps, Marc Lavoie, Anthony Thirlwall.

From the summary:

From crisis to prosperity for all

Much more ambitious multilateral measures will be required if a global crisis is to be transformed into a global recovery:

• Expanding the use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to support national development strategies in developing countries through a truly internationally governed reserve system. At the very least, developing countries’ fiscal spaces should be backed by the equivalent of $1 trillion of SDRs to meet current liquidity constraints.
• Financial support for boosting the health emergency response to COVID-19 in developing countries through a Marshall Plan for Health Recovery funded through increased official development assistance (ODA) commitments, international tax reform and enhanced multilateral financing mechanisms, on a scale to build resilience and boost recovery.
• An international Public Credit Rating Agency to provide objective expert-based ratings of the creditworthiness of sovereigns and companies, including developing countries, and to promote global public goods. This would, moreover, help to promote competition in a highly concentrated private market.
• A Global Debt Authority to stop a repeat liquidity crises from turning into serial sovereign defaults. Such an authority would build a repository of institutional memory on sovereign debt restructurings. It would also oversee the establishment of a global publicly accessible registry of loan and debt data pertaining to sovereign debt restructurings. In addition, it would develop a blueprint for a comprehensive and transparent international legal and institutional framework to govern automatic temporary standstills on sovereign debt repayments in times of crises and to manage sovereign debt workouts in a fair, efficient and transparent manner.

The title is the link. You can download find the PDF file in that link.