Gallagher Publishes Article on U.S.-China Development Finance in CSIS Report
Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and Director of BU’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), published an article on China- United States economic collaboration in a joint report of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Economics Program and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
Gallagher’s article was one of six essays compiled for the report, titled “Perspectives on the Global Economic Order in 2021.” His article, titled “Working to Avoid the Kindleberger Trap: China-U.S. Collaboration on Development Finance,” focuses on the urgent need for a stepwise increase in long-term development finance and the role that China and the U.S. can play alone, in parallel, and together. While it’s up for debate whether a global debt crisis is on the horizon, Gallagher argues that growing debt overhang will make it impossible for the world’s nations to mobilize the necessary resources to meet shared climate and development goals without new financing and more careful use of subsequent funds. In order to facilitate an equitable and green global economy, Gallagher claims that a stepwise mobilization of capital is necessary alongside meaningful levels of debt relief for emerging markets and developing countries.
An excerpt:
Unfortunately, the scale, composition, and efficacy of development finance has not kept pace with the size of the world economy and the growing set of issues that the world’s nations have prioritized. While differences in accounting methods vary, there is a consensus that at minimum an additional 2 percent of GDP needs to be mobilized on an annual basis from now until 2030 in order to meet global climate and development goals. Such goals are not arbitrary. If such financing is not mobilized and put to good use, the economic costs of inaction from climate and social shocks will be severe.
The full report can be read on CSIS’s website.
Kevin Gallagher is a professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he directs the Global Development Policy Center. He is the author or co-author of six books, including most recently, The China Triangle: Latin America’s China Boom and the Fate of the Washington Consensus. Read more about Professor Gallagher on his Pardee School faculty profile.