Global coordination: weighted voting

Vol. 34 No. 1 (2014)

Jan-Mar / 2014
Published January 1, 2014
PDF-English
PDF-English

How to Cite

Lane, Jan-Erik. 2014. “Global Coordination: Weighted Voting”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 34 (1):72-79. https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/261.

Global coordination: weighted voting

Jan-Erik Lane
professor at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau.
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 34 No. 1 (2014), Jan-Mar / 2014, Pages 72-79

Abstract

In order to halt the depletion of global ecological capital, a number of different kinds of meetings between governments of countries in the world has been scheduled. The need for global coordination of environmental policies has become ever more obvious, supported by more and more evidence of the running down of ecological capital. But there are no formal or binding arrangements in sight, as global environmental coordination suffers from high transaction costs (qualitative voting). The CO2 equivalent emissions, resulting in global warming, are driven by the unstoppable economic expansion in the global market economy, employing mainly fossil fuel generated energy, although at the same time lifting sharply the GDP per capita of several emerging countries. Only global environmental coordination on the successful model of the World Band and the IMF (quantitative voting) can stem the rising emissions numbers and stop further environmental degradation. However, the system of weighted voting in the WB and the IMF must be reformed by reducing the excessive voting power disparities, for instance by reducing all member country votes by the cube root expression.

JEL Classification: Q32.


Keywords: global coordination transaction costs global economic governance environmental interdependencies greenhouse gases ecological capital weighted voting voting power