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Center-periphery relationships of pharmaceutical value chains

May 4, 2021April 15, 2021 Cristina ReisLeave a comment

By Cristina Fr贸es de Borja Reis and Jos茅 Paulo Guedes Pinto

It is well known that, during the 20^th century, the pharmaceutical industry became extremely powerful at the international level, alongside financial, energy, technology, and manufacturing companies (Wells, 1984). The internationalization of the pharmaceutical industry only rose after the internationalization of patent protection in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement) (). This industry is highly concentrated around a small number of very large transnational groups (65% of global sales are made by the 20 largest players 鈥� the 鈥榖ig pharma鈥�) that operate worldwide through subsidiaries in 150 countries, on average. Revenue in the worldwide pharmaceutical market increased at a considerable rate, even during the global slump of 2008, and was estimated at an astounding USD1.143 trillion in 2017 (). Recently, we published on pharmaceutical value chains, which investigates how they are embedded in an international division of labor, from a new-structuralist theoretical perspective. We ask: how global are the pharmaceuticals value chains? Are there centers and peripheries in pharmaceuticals value chains, and if so, which countries are in each pole?

Enduring Relevance: Samir Amin鈥檚 radical political economy

April 11, 2021April 9, 2021 Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven1 Comment

By Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, , and

In moments of great uncertainty there is refuge to be found in the work of intellectual titans like Samir Amin. After the sad news of his passing in August 2018 in Paris, aged 86, we began thinking about how best to explore the enduring relevance of his analysis and concepts to make sense of contemporary crises.

The pertinence and analytical heft of Amin鈥檚 work is particularly important in the contemporary period marked by the interconnected crises related to COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, the climate emergency, and looming debt crises across the periphery. In the years ahead, confronting these multiple and intertwined crises will require the kind of commitment to combining research with political engagement that Amin demonstrated.

Amin鈥檚 ability to weave together thorough analysis of the polarising effects of capitalism with concrete political projects for an international radical left makes his work particularly relevant in our quest to understand capitalism, its particularities across the world, and oppositions to it. There is a younger generation of scholars, of which we are a part, that is particularly hungry for Amin鈥檚 perspectives, one that came of age in a time where the universities have been thoroughly marketised and moulded by neoliberal processes, and where intellectual production and debates are not necessarily embedded within social struggles.

Intellectual monopoly capitalism and its effects on development

April 7, 2021 ceciliarikap8 Comments

What is new with contemporary (global) leading corporations? If gigantic monopolies are a repeated phenomenon in capitalism鈥檚 history, why all the fuss we see every day regarding high concentration?

Leading corporations of the 21st century are intellectual monopolies. These are firms that rely on a permanent and expanding monopoly over portions of society鈥檚 knowledge. A recent joint OECD and European Union report shows that the top 2000 corporations in business expenditure in research and development (BERD) concentrated 60% of total IP5[1] patents between 2014 and 2016 (Dernis et al., 2019).

How did this happen if intellectual rents enjoyed by the innovator were supposed to disappear once the rest of the industry adopts the new technique? They disappeared if the secret was broken, the patent expired, or when another firm innovated, overcoming the innovating firm鈥檚 advantage. Knowledge is cumulative and those innovating have a greater absorptive capacity to keep innovating. Aided by a more stringent and global intellectual property regime, the continuous reinforcement of knowledge monopolies has led to a perpetuation of the core, maximizing rentiership over time.

Intellectual monopolies may not monopolize the markets they operate, which can even be competitive markets like Amazon鈥檚 marketplace, where Amazon sells its products with millions of other sellers. Their monopolistic condition relies on their capacity to significantly and systematically monopolize knowledge, which generally 鈥� but not always 鈥� contributes to market concentration.

The Demise of Palestinian Productive Sectors: Internal Trade as a Microcosm of the Impact of Occupation

February 21, 2021 ishikakiLeave a comment

The Israeli occupation has consistently inflicted disastrous economic costs on the Palestinians, costs that economists have examined for decades. One dimension that has been missing in these examinations, however, relates to the distortions in the structure of the Palestinian economy, and the detrimental impacts of these distortions. The term economic structure refers to the contribution of different economic sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and trade, to the key macroeconomic variables of output (GDP) and employment.聽

Whereas a comprehensive study of these structural distortions is beyond the scope of this blog post, we zoom in on one particular economic sector that has been playing an increasingly dominant role in the Palestinian economy: internal trade.聽Briefly, internal trade refers to the retail and wholesale buying and selling of goods, including trade with Israel. The increased relevance of the contribution of internal trade to total economic activity in Palestine is part of an ongoing聽shift away from productive sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing, towards services, trade, and construction.

This post argues that the dominance of internal trade at the expense of productive sectors is neither a result of a conscious policy effort by the Palestinian Authority (PA) nor an outcome of 鈥渓aissez faire鈥� market governance. Rather, it is a byproduct of Israeli occupation policies, and a clear consequence of the Palestinian economy鈥檚 dependence on the Israeli economy since 1967. The post argues that internal trade is a microcosm of the Palestinian economy as a whole, highlighting the futility of international and donor support for development under occupation. Rather, what is needed involves empowering independent, transparent, accountable, and collective Palestinian policy-making, a quality of leadership and governance that the Palestinian leadership of the last 25 years cannot lead or carry out.聽

Latin America: still caught in the capital flows trap

February 8, 2021January 21, 2021 robertolampaLeave a comment

In a recent , I discussed the poor state of Latin American economies drawing on some rather obscure works by Ra煤l Prebisch, explicitly addressed to the disturbing role of capital flows on (primarized and open) Latin American economies. I find that the post-2008 cyclical trend of capital flows is an exacerbated version of what has been affecting Latin America since the days of Prebich .

Mainstream literature on capital flows to developing countries has shared two important commonalities since the 1990s. This literature, for example in the tradition of New Institutional Economics, tends to assume a beneficial effect of capital inflows, which leads to an improvement of peripheral institutions, whose deficiencies are ostensibly the main cause of economic turmoil and/or failure in attracting capital flows. In doing so, however, mainstream economists deliberately overlook the asymmetric characteristics of the international monetary system and the persisting hegemony of the US Dollar.

The New 鈥淧assive鈥� Wall Street Counterparts for States in the Global South

January 5, 2021January 3, 2021 jpetry13 Comments

By and Johannes Petry

In the past, during the time of the 鈥淲ashington Consensus鈥� developing countries from the Global South faced the IMF and the World Bank as their main counterparts in important matters of global finance. Based on our recently published we argue that due to an ongoing paradigm shift in financial markets this constellation is changing profoundly. A new breed of Wall Street firms is emerging that occupies a pivotal position in the relationship between (developing) countries and financial markets – index providers.

This rise of index providers is grounded in the global shift towards passive investment. Formerly, investors gave their money to funds where a well-paid fund manager was picking stocks (or bonds) with the aim to produce above average returns – to 鈥渂eat鈥� the market in finance parlance. But now more and more investors invest in cheap passive funds (which comprise both exchange traded funds and index mutual funds) that merely track financial indices. Unlike actively managed funds, however, the passive index funds industry is characterised by enormous economies of scale – in terms of technology it is not a big difference if a passive fund has ten million or ten billion US$ assets under management. In addition, there is a strong first mover advantage. As a result, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street dominate passive funds as the . Excellent recent work has since focused on how this is shaping the emergent .

How pension funds shape financialisation in emerging economies in Colombia and Peru

December 13, 2020November 13, 2020 bbonizziLeave a comment

By Bruno Bonizzi, Jennifer Churchill and Diego Guevara

In early spring 2020 emerging economies (EEs) . Stock and bonds were sold as investors flight to safer investments in Europe and the United States, showing once again the fragile nature of EEs鈥� financial integration. To overcome this problem, one suggested solution is to allow for a larger , such as pension funds, which can stabilise financial markets. While having a large institutional investor base can be a source of demand for domestic financial securities, it is important to review the evidence from the experience of those EEs where pension funds have existed for more than two decades.

As we show in our , the experience of Colombia and Peru can be instructive. Their pension system, while maintaining a significant parallel public Pay-As-You-Go structure, has a sizeable funded private component with assets that have grown These were established as part of the Washington Consensus reforms in the 1990s, following the prior example of Chile.

Economic Sovereignty for Developing Countries: What Role for Modern Money Theory?

December 2, 2020November 28, 2020 basiloberholzer4 Comments

With modern money theory (MMT) receiving impressive attention, the implications this theory has for developing countries have also been discussed more intensely. Emphasizing both its strengths and gaps provides a great chance to further develop macroeconomic strategies for poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.

In brief, the starts from the statement that money is issued by the government and brought into circulation via its expenditures. The government does not rely on taxes to fund expenditures when it is itself the source of money. Therefore, money can be created upon demand, is not limited, and can be used by the government to finance all expenditures it considers necessary to achieve policy goals such as full employment or a . The reason why agents in the economy accepts this money only consisting of numbers without any intrinsic value is the obligation to pay taxes. Since the state has the power to impose taxes, individuals need to get hold of money as this is the only way to meet their obligations; this is how the currency is accepted as a means of payments. The government thus has the power to run unlimited deficits because the fact that money is needed to pay taxes guarantees its acceptance even if those taxes do not cover expenditures. In fact, the government should run deficits because it creates the demand required for full employment while a balanced budget constrains it. The government cannot go bankrupt because there is no lack of currency it issues itself. The conditions identified by MMT for the system to work are the following: 1) the country must be sovereign of its own currency and 2) inflation needs to be kept under control. Once the latter starts accelerating due to increased nominal demand stemming from government expenditures, taxes can be increased in order to withdraw money from circulation. However, as long as full employment is not achieved, prices are argued to remain stable.

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