The Global Economy in Turbulent Times

CHAPTER 78 The Tobin Tax Revisited¹

For seven years in the 1990s (1994–2000), I served the United Nations in New York in two capacities, as: (1) chairman, Ad Hoc Inter-sessional Government Working Group of Experts on Finance, UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), and (2) chairman, International Experts Group on Financial Issues, Agenda 21. The focus of my work was to (1) develop policies to secure ready access to external finance to fund sustainable development (including Official Development Assistance, Foreign Direct Investment, and low-interest debt); (2) advance new initiatives on domestic resource mobilization policies (including widespread use of the entire range of “green” taxes and charges, push subsidy reform, and encourage private financing); and (3) promote innovative national and international financial mechanisms for far-reaching resource mobilization.

Agenda 21: The Rio Declaration

Toward the end of the 1980s, the United Nations General Assembly called on the world to devise strategies to halt and reverse the effects of environmental degradation. And, to do so in the context of increased national and international efforts to promote sustainable and environmentally sound development in all countries. Agenda 21, adopted at the Rio Summit—United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)—in mid-June 1992, was the international community’s response. It represented a comprehensive program of action to be implemented into the twenty-first ...