Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

About: Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies is a education organization based out in Geneva, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: International law & Politics. The organization has 769 authors who have published 2283 publications receiving 62198 citations. The organization is also known as: Graduate Institute Geneva.

The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives

Abstract: The human imprint on the global environment has now become so large and active that it rivals some of the great forces of Nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system. Although global-scale human influence on the environment has been recognized since the 1800s, the term Anthropocene, introduced about a decade ago, has only recently become widely, but informally, used in the global change research community. However, the term has yet to be accepted formally as a new geological epoch or era in Earth history. In this paper, we put forward the case for formally recognizing the Anthropocene as a new epoch in Earth history, arguing that the advent of the Industrial Revolution around 1800 provides a logical start date for the new epoch. We then explore recent trends in the evolution of the Anthropocene as humanity proceeds into the twenty-first century, focusing on the profound changes to our relationship with the rest of the living world and on early attempts and proposals for managing our relationship with the large geophysical cycles that drive the Earth's climate system.

The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene

Abstract: Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.

Gravity for dummies and dummies for gravity equations

Abstract: This paper provides a minimalist derivation of the gravity equation and uses it to identify three common errors in the literature, what we call the gold, silver and bronze medal errors. The paper provides estimates of the size of the biases taking the currency union trade effect as an example. We generalize Anderson-Van Wincoop’s multilateral trade resistance factor (which only works with cross section data) to allow for panel data and then show that it can be dealt with using time-varying country dummies with omitted determinants of bilateral trade being dealt with by time-invariant pair dummies.

Too much finance

Abstract: This paper examines whether there is a threshold above which …nancial development no longer has a positive eect on economic growth. We use dierent empirical approaches to show that there can indeed be "too much" …nance. In particular, our results suggest that …nance starts having a negative eect on output growth when credit to the private sector reaches 100% of GDP. We show that our results are consistent with the "vanishing eect" of …nancial development and that they are not driven by output volatility, banking crises, low institutional quality, or by dierences in bank regulation and supervision.