The CFA Franc Zones: Neocolonialism and Dependency

Die Inflation ist als ökonomisches Phänomen für VWL-Studierende ähnlich schwer zu fassen wie für die breite Öffentlichkeit und die Politik. Dieser Artikel entwickelt einen Analyserahmen, der helfen soll, über Inflation sowohl als ein wirtschaftliches als auch als ein politisches Phänomen nachzudenken.

In this dossier, Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie highlights the need for debt cancellation for countries of the Global South and the payment of reparations for the climate catastrophe caused by the Global North.

The last 15 years have seen extensive research into ecosystem service valuation (ESV), spurred by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005 (Baveye, Baveye & Gowdy, 2016). Ecosystem services are defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, p.V). For example, ecosystems provide the service of sequestering carbon which helps regulate the climate. Valuation means giving ecosystems or their services a monetary price, for example researchers have estimated that the carbon sequestration services of the Mediterranean Sea is between 100 and 1500 million euros per year. The idea of ESV was a response to the overuse of natural resources and degradation of ecosystems, allegedly due to their undervaluation and exclusion from the monetary economy. ESV can be used (1) for policy decision-making, for example allocating funding to a reforestation project (2) for setting payments to people who increase ecosystem services, for example a farmer increasing the organic carbon content of their soil, and (3) for determining fees for people who degrade ecosystem services, for example a company that causes deforestation.

This multimedia dossier is part of the series „Understanding Finance“ by Finance Watch and presents a description and critical review of financial markets and their functions. It furthermore discusses recent developments, as high frequency trading.