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1. Global agricultural yields and trade over the last half century

   https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/adf074  

   Pandit, Akshay; Konar, Megan; Debaere, Peter (July 2025, Environmental Research: Food Systems)

   Abstract Global agricultural trade, production, and harvested area have steadily increased between 1961 and 2021. In this paper, we construct, decompose, and compare various measures of global physical crop yield that rely on countries’ crop area, production, and trade weights that vary over time. We document how the composition of exports and imports irrespective of the particular drivers of globalization is skewed towards higher crop yields compared to the changing international patterns of countries’ production as evidenced by the distribution of harvested area and production. We also document how the physical yield of exporting countries has consistently surpassed that of importing countries, indicating as well how a globalized world in which countries can trade and alter the pattern of crop production offers a way to ensure that worldwide higher-yield crops are being consumed. As such, the increasingly globalized agricultural sector with its many drivers of trade substitutes for and/or complements efforts to close the yield gap by upgrading countries crop production methods. For the exercise, we use national-scale data for 60 years from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. 

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2. Technology globalization and technonationalism: a brief introduction

   Lynn, Leonard; Salzman, Hal (September 2022, Salem Press/EBSCO)

   Technology has advanced through global exchanges, with different nations technologically ascendant at different periods. Nations’ perceptions of and policies about achieving and maintaining technological leadership have been based on zero-sum assumptions that ultimately have proved futile and may lead to their decline in the face of emergent technology powers. In the first fifteen or so centuries BCE, China led the world in the development and use of the world’s most consequential technologies, including printing, gunpowder, the compass, and the production of superior iron and steel. These technologies spread as far as Western Europe, especially as the network of trade routes known as “the Silk Roads” were brought under the control of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Mongols radically reduced travel and trade barriers over the four thousand miles from the Sea of Japan to the Mediterranean, spanning widely diverse countries and cultures. In effect, they developed the first global technology trade system. The roads were blocked by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century, and China’s technological dynamism stagnated. From the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, the West became the primary center for the development and use of military and industrial technologies that enabled a substantial Western domination of the world. The Western domination may now be coming to an end as China and other Asia countries have achieved new levels of technological strength and, as emerging economies, are increasingly challenging the Western domination of the rules of intellectual property rights and technology trade. This article describes the China- and Western-centric eras of technology diffusion, noting prevailing zero-sum assumptions about sharing technology and the perceived need for nations to maintain technological “superiority” over other nations. The article concludes with suggestions for the development of a global commons of technology development and sharing. 

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3. Indicators of illicit activities in gold supply chains: Insights from Peru and Kenya

   Smith, Nicole M.; Seguin, K.; Saka, U.M.; Duzgun, S.; Soud, D.; and White, J. (June 2023, WIDER Working Paper)

   United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (Ed.)

   Illicit gold flows constitute a major development challenge for governments and a social responsibility challenge for the jewellery industry, which accounts for the majority of global gold demand. This paper highlights aspects of gold supply chains that lack transparency and may indicate junctures where illicit activities are taking place, resulting in a loss of tax and customs revenues. Using Peru and Kenya as case study countries, we draw from United Nations Comtrade data and qualitative data from field research to examine the magnitude of the gold trade, the forms in which gold is traded, and key trade partners for each country. We suggest that midstream portions of gold supply chains should be given more attention, certain types of gold exports and imports present greater traceability challenges than others, and some countries play a much more significant role in the global jewellery trade. We propose areas where further investigations may be warranted to ensure more transparent and responsible gold supply chains. 

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4. Regulating Artificial Intelligence Proposal for a Global Solution

   Erdelyi, Olivia; Goldsmith, Judy (February 2018, AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society)

   Given the ubiquity of artificial intelligence (AI) in modern societies, it is clear that individuals, corporations, and countries will be grappling with the legal and ethical issues of its use. As global problems require global solutions, we propose the establishment of an international AI regulatory agency that — drawing on interdisciplinary expertise — could create a unified framework for the regulation of AI technologies and inform the development of AI policies around the world. We urge that such an organization be developed with all deliberate haste, as issues such as cryptocurrencies, personalized political ad hacking, autonomous vehicles and autonomous weaponized agents, are already a reality, affecting international trade, politics, and war. 

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5. Science and technology in a global commons: the end of techno-nationalism?

   Lynn, Leonard; Salzman, Hal (February 2023, Salem Press/EBSCO)

   The global challenges now facing all nations transcend national boundaries. Summoning the global talent and resources necessary to addresses these problems will require global science, technology, and innovation (STI) collaboration. Whether climate change, global poverty, or the threats from cyber technologies, effectively dealing with these challenges and opportunities will increasingly require advanced industrialized nations to move beyond their historical techno-nationalist STI policies. Currently, STI policies being proposed in the US and elsewhere assume a " zero-sum " competition where one nation's STI successes are assumed to come at the expense of other nations. They seek ways to outcompete other nations in the production of new STI and restrict foreign access to their STI. History suggests that such policies had, at best, limited success, and the current environment for them seems even less promising. When China was a global STI leader, its tecno-nationalistic policies failed to prevent the spread of its advanced technologies and the rise of other nations. England was unable to use techno-nationalist policies to monopolize the skills and technology it pioneered during the industrial revolution. America pursued its own techno-nationalist polices in the post-World War II years, attempting to maintain the leadership it enjoyed as other countries recovered from World War II devastation. Today new centers of STI development are rapidly emerging and expanding in China, India, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. In response, many US policy makers and business leaders harken back to prior failed strategies and advocate intensifying the techno-nationalistic STI policies. This paper proposes a more techno-globalistic approach through the development of a global STI commons, an approach that holds the promise of benefiting people all over the world, including those in currently dominant nations. 

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