Browse FSI scholarship on geopolitics, global health, energy, cybersecurity and more.
Featured Publications
Is Russia Losing in Ukraine but Winning in the Global South?
Kathryn Stoner examines why the Global South has such a different perspective from the Global North on Russia’s war in Ukraine, and what that might mean for the international order.
A new book by Oriana Skylar Mastro offers a novel framework to explain China's 30-year journey to great power status through strategic emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship.
Regulating Under Uncertainty: Governance Options for Generative AI
Florence G'Sell lays out all the options that are “on the table” for regulating artificial intelligence and increasing communication, cooperation, and transparency among the technology's many stakeholders.
Significance
To achieve sustainable development, there is a pressing need to move beyond conventional economic measures like gross domestic product (GDP). We develop gross ecosystem product (GEP), a measure that summarizes the value of the contributions of nature to economic activity. We illustrate the calculation of GEP in Qinghai Province, China, to show that the approach is tractable both across China and globally. Known as the water tower of Asia, Qinghai is the source of the Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers and nearly two-thirds of GEP derives from water-related values. GEP was greater than GDP in Qinghai in 2000, and was three-fourths as large as GDP in 2015. China is using GEP to guide investments in ecosystem conservation and restoration.
Abstract
Gross domestic product (GDP) summarizes a vast amount of economic information in a single monetary metric that is widely used by decision makers around the world. However, GDP fails to capture fully the contributions of nature to economic activity and human well-being. To address this critical omission, we develop a measure of gross ecosystem product (GEP) that summarizes the value of ecosystem services in a single monetary metric. We illustrate the measurement of GEP through an application to the Chinese province of Qinghai, showing that the approach is tractable using available data. Known as the “water tower of Asia,” Qinghai is the source of the Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers, and indeed, we find that water-related ecosystem services make up nearly two-thirds of the value of GEP for Qinghai. Importantly most of these benefits accrue downstream. In Qinghai, GEP was greater than GDP in 2000 and three-fourths as large as GDP in 2015 as its market economy grew. Large-scale investment in restoration resulted in improvements in the flows of ecosystem services measured in GEP (127.5%) over this period. Going forward, China is using GEP in decision making in multiple ways, as part of a transformation to inclusive, green growth. This includes investing in conservation of ecosystem assets to secure provision of ecosystem services through transregional compensation payments.
