On March 5, Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to the Shanghai delegates to the National People’s Congress (NPC) session in Beijing. China’s top leaders use these side meetings to convey policy guidance on a range of issues, and Xi used this particular one to offer his perspective on relations with Taiwan. There has been some nervousness in the wake of the January 16 elections, which swept the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to power in both the executive and legislative branches. Because the Beijing government has always suspected that the fundamental objective of the DPP is to permanently separate Taiwan from China, observers were waiting expectantly to hear what Xi would have to say about Taiwan.

Well before the March 5 speech, of course, Xi’s subordinates responsible for Taiwan policy had already laid out what Taiwan President-elect Tsai Ing-wen and her party would have to do to prevent cross-Strait relations from deteriorating, and they continued to emphasize those conditions after Xi’s speech. But analysts believed that Xi’s own formulation would be the clearest indicator of Beijing’s policy. He is, after all, China’s paramount leader, and his words carry a far greater weight than those of other Chinese officials.

This is what Xi said to the Shanghai NPC delegation about Taiwan [translation by the author, emphasis added]:

Compatriots on the two sides of the Strait are blood brothers who share a common destiny, and are people for whom blood is thicker than water…Our policy towards Taiwan is correct and consistent, and will not change because of a change in [who heads] the Taiwan authorities. We will insist upon the political foundation of the “1992 consensus,” and continue to advance cross-Strait relations and peaceful development…If the historical fact of the “1992 consensus” is recognized and if its core connotation is acknowledged, then the two sides of the Strait will have a common political basis and positive interaction [virtuous circle] can be preserved. We will steadily push forward cross-Strait dialogue and cooperation in various fields, deepen cross-Strait economic, social, and financial development, and increase the familial attachment and welfare of compatriots [on both sides], close their spiritual gap, and strengthen their recognition that they share a common destiny. We will resolutely contain the separatist path of any form of Taiwan independence, protect state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and absolutely not allow a repetition of the historical tragedy of national separation. This is the common wish and firm intention of all Chinese sons and daughters, and is also our solemn pledge and obligation to history and to the people. The fruits of cross-Strait relations and peaceful development require the common support of compatriots on the two sides; creating a common and happy future requires the common effort of compatriots on the two sides; and realizing the great revival of the Chinese nation requires that compatriots on the two sides join hands to work with one heart.

The italicized sentences are key: They state what the new DPP government should do if it wishes to maintain healthy cross-Strait relations and affirms Beijing’s resolve to oppose any behavior it doesn’t like. Xi didn’t threaten specific actions, but he probably didn’t have to. As always, Beijing reserves the right to decide what DPP attitudes and actions constitute separatism and a quest for Taiwan independence. 

Xi didn’t threaten specific actions, but he probably didn’t have to.

Some background

There are two important points of reference contextualizing this statement from Xi. 

Xi on November 7, 2015. First, there are his reported remarks on the future of cross-Strait relations during his unprecedented meeting with current Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore last November 7. At that time, Xi first appealed to ethnic solidarity and national unity, as he did again on March 5. He asserted that the stakes to end the state of division between Mainland China and Taiwan were very high because it was a critical part of how he views rejuvenating the Chinese nation—a theme he repeated to the Shanghai delegation. 

Xi said Taiwan, under the new government, could either continue to follow the path it has walked for the last seven-plus years under the current Ma Ying-jeou administration (“peaceful development”), or it could take the path of renewed “confrontation,” “separation,” and zero-sum hostility. If Taiwan wished to follow the first path, Xi insisted, its leaders must adhere to the 1992 consensus and oppose “Taiwan independence.” Without this “magic compass that calms the sea,” Xi warned, “the ship of peaceful development will meet with great waves and even suffer total loss.” He was willing to overlook the DPP’s past positions and actions, but only if it identified with “the core connotation of the 1992 consensus” (a reference to the PRC view that the Mainland and Taiwan are both within the territorial scope of China, a view the DPP contests). Xi alluded to the “core connotation” on March 5 but did not re-state its content. Xi then made clear that if “disaster” occurred, it would be the DPP’s fault—it was therefore up to Tsai, he implied, to accommodate to Beijing’s conditions. 

In language and tone, Xi’s Singapore statement was far more strident and alarmist than what he said on March 5. He made that first statement more than two months before the election, when perhaps he thought that tough talk would weaken Tsai’s and the DPP’s appeal to voters. If that was his objective, he failed. The tone of his March 5 remarks was more modulated, but the substance was the same. Beijing would define the crossroads that Taiwan faced, and it was up to Tsai to take the right path—at least what it defined the right path.

Beijing would define the crossroads that Taiwan faced, and it was up to Tsai to take the right path—at least what it defined the right path.

Tsai on January 21, 2016. Second, there is an interview that Tsai gave to Liberty Times (Tzu-yu Shih Pao) on January 21—less than a week after the elections—in which she sought to meet Beijing partway. For the first time, she used the phrase “political foundation” and said it had four elements: 

• “The first is that the SEF-ARATS discussions of 1992 are a historical fact and both sides had a common acknowledgment to set aside differences and seek common ground;” 
• “The second is the Republic of China’s current constitutional order.”
• “The third is the accumulated results of the more than 20 years of cross-strait negotiations, exchanges, and interactions;” and
• “The fourth is Taiwan’s democratic principles and the will of the Taiwanese people to make sure that Taiwan voters understood the limits to his tolerance.”

So, Tsai accepts the 1992 meetings as a historical fact and acknowledges that the two sides did reach an agreement of sorts, but does not accept the 1992 consensus itself as a historical fact. She spoke more about process than content. The Republic of China’s “current constitutional order” is also part of the foundation, which some have read as Tsai’s acceptance that the Mainland and Taiwan are both parts of China’s territory (Beijing’s “core connotation”)—I, however, am not so sure. Tsai did not reject Xi’s requirements out of hand, but she framed them in her own way. 

So are ties growing friendlier?

Was Xi’s tonal moderation on March 5—relative to November 7—an indicator that mutual accommodation was going on? Perhaps. But the fact that the November meeting was ostensibly private while the March speech was public might explain the difference. 

Moreover, the stream of Chinese articles and statements since March 5 that explicitly restate Beijing’s long-standing preconditions are reason to doubt that much accommodation is actually occurring. The three basic scenarios I outlined last December—accommodation, limited Chinese punishment of the Tsai administration, and comprehensive punishment—are still in play, and the key variable remains whether Xi and his subordinates trust Tsai Ing-wen’s basic intentions. That is, will they accept her recent formulations as a good-faith effort to avoid deterioration? The next milestone will be May 20, when Tsai Ing-wen gives her inaugural address and may provide a more detailed formulation of her approach to China.

In “Designing Pan-Atlantic and International Anti-Crime Cooperation,” a chapter for the new book, Dark Networks in the Atlantic Basin: Emerging Trends and Implications for Human Security (Center for Transatlantic Relations, January 2015), Vanda Felbab-Brown discusses the context and challenges of designing policies to counter organized crime and illicit economies in West Africa. She argues that although large-scale illicit economies and organized crime have received intense attention from governments and international organizations since the end of the Cold War, the strategies designed to combat these developments have been ineffective and, at times, counterproductive. Many populations experiencing inadequate state presence, great poverty, and social and political marginalization are dependent on illicit economies; and policies prioritizing suppression of these economies can, paradoxically, increase the economic and political capital of criminal or militant groups.

The recent drug trade epidemic and the connections between various illicit economies and terrorism have cast a spotlight on West Africa, Felbab-Brown explains. But in analyzing how the drug trade affects West Africa, it is important to note that preexisting institutional and governance deficiencies crucially amplify the destabilizing effects of the drug trade. Neither the  drug trade nor the entrenchment of political corruption and misgovernance in West Africa are new phenomena emerging in the wake of cocaine flows through the region. Rather, political contestation in West Africa has long centered on the capture of rents from legal, semi-illegal, or outright illegal economies such as diamonds, gold, timber, cacao, human trafficking, and illegal fishing, resulting in a pervasive culture of illegality, in which society expects that laws will be broken, enforcement evaded, and that the state will be the source of rents rather than an equitable provider of public goods. A long history of rentier economies, illicit activity, smuggling, endemic corruption, weak institutions, and governance as mafia rule—that provides exceptions from law enforcement to the ruler's clique—has left West Africa with what Felbab-Brown terms the technology of illegality and the state as mafia bazaar.

This context makes West Africa a particularly vexing area for policymakers and international donors who want to combat militancy or organized crime in West Africa. The United States and international community should consider any intervention in the region strategically, calibrating assistance packages to the absorptive capacity of the partner country, focusing on broad state-building, and fostering good governance. The priority of the United States must be to combat the most disruptive and dangerous networks of organized crime and belligerency, recognizing that anti-crime interventions cannot eradicate the majority of organized crime, illicit economies, and drug trafficking in the region. Moreover, efforts by external donors, such as Colombia or Brazil, to transfer policy practices to West African countries need to carefully consider which external lessons and policies are suited for local contexts.

The full book, Dark Networks in the Atlantic Basin: Emerging Trends and Implications for Human Security, is available for purchase from The Brookings Institution Press.

Downloads

• Designing pan-Atlantic and international anti-crime cooperation

The G-20 Summit begins in Brisbane, Australia this Saturday, November 15. Leaders are descending on the city to tackle the biggest economic challenges facing the planet. A major theme of the discussions will likely be convergence—the rapid approach of average incomes in low- and middle-income countries towards those in advanced economies—and its sustainability. In a recent brief in the Brookings Global Think Tank 20 series, I explore this issue in the sub-Saharan African context, examining what has been holding the region back, how Africa might reach the rapid convergence seen by other emerging economies, and if and how convergence might be sustained. For my full brief, see here.

As most know, despite the “growth miracles” happening on the continent, sub-Saharan Africa still has a long way to go. Africa’s economic growth started much later and has gone much slower than the rest of the developing world; thus its per capita income gap against advanced economies still remains quite large. In fact, Africa hasn’t even converged with other emerging economies (see Figure 1). 

In addition to slow growth, Africa faces many, many challenges: Conflict-ridden countries still face a declining income per capita, and inequality is rampant. While Africa’s poverty rate is dropping, its share in global poverty is not: In 1990, 56 percent of Africans lived on under $1.25 a day, meaning that they represented 15 percent of those in poverty worldwide. Over the next 20 years, the region’s poverty rate dropped to 48 percent, but its share of global poverty doubled. At this rate, many predict that by 2030 Africa’s poverty rate will fall to 24 percent, but represent 82 percent of the world’s poor (Chandy et al., 2013). 

Of the utmost importance for convergence, though, is the issue of structural transformation in the region. If sub-Saharan Africa can reduce its reliance on unproductive and volatile sectors, it will build a foundation on which economic growth—and convergence—can be sustained.

Currently, African economies are characterized by a reliance on natural resources, agriculture and a budding services sector. Natural resources are, and will likely continue to be, major drivers of Africa’s economic growth: About 20 African countries derived more than 25 percent of their total merchandise exports in 2000-2011 from them. Unfortunately, this dependence on natural resources comes hand-in-hand with challenges such as financial volatility, rent-seeking behavior, and a loss of competitiveness, among many others—making a turn away from them necessary for long-term, sustainable growth. Similarly, most African economies depend heavily on the low-yield agriculture sector—its least productive sector and with the lowest income and consumption levels.

While labor has been moving out of the agriculture sector, it is moving into the services sector. From 2000-2010, the agriculture labor force share fell by about 10 percent while services grew by 8 percent (McMillan and Harttgen, 2014). While much of the movement into the services industry has been into productive areas such as telecommunications and banking, most service sector jobs in sub-Saharan Africa are informal.  Although informal activities offer earning opportunities to many people, they are often unstable and it is far from clear that they can be an engine of sustainable and inclusive high economic growth. In addition, growth in the services sector overall has historically not shown the economic returns that industry has.

If policymakers can enhance productivity in the services sector, then growth could take off even more rapidly, but until then, the highly productive manufacturing sector will be the key to Africa’s convergence. (For more on this, see the attached PowerPoint presentation.)

The Missing Piece: African Industry

Industrialization in Africa is low: Manufacturing–the driver of growth in Asia—employs less than 8 percent of the workforce and makes up only 10 percent of GDP on the continent (Rodrik, 2014). In comparison to the 8 percent growth in the services sector from 2000-2010, manufacturing saw only 2 percent growth (McMillan and Harttgen, 2014). In addition, the region’s manufacturing sector is dominated mostly by small and informal (and thus less productive) firms. Since the research has shown that industry was key to the explosive and continued growth in Asia and Europe, without concentration on or support of the manufacturing sector, African economies are not likely to replicate those convergence dynamics (Rodrik, 2014). Thus, Africa’s slow pace of industrialization means that, in addition to its late start time and its past sluggish growth, the region has another obstacle towards convergence.

There is hope, however; there are already hints that structural transformation might be happening. The recent rebasing of Nigeria’s economy revealed some important new trends. There, the contribution from oil and gas to GDP fell from 32 to 14 percent, and agriculture from 35 to 22 percent. At the same time, the telecommunication’s contribution sector rose from 0.9 to 9 percent, and manufacturing from 2 to 7 percent.

Achieving a successful economic transformation will help capitalize on improved growth fundamentals and achieve high and sustained per capita growth rates. However, for such a process to yield lasting benefits, it is crucial to better understand the ongoing structural changes taking place in Africa. This is an important task for economists studying Africa and, in addition to achieving a “data revolution,” both meta-analysis and case study methods can be useful complements to the current body of research on the continent.

References

Chandy, Laurence, Natasha Ledlie, and Veronika Penciakova. 2013. “Africa’s Challenge to End Extreme Poverty by 2030: Too Slow or Too Far Behind?” The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. April 2013, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/05/29-africachallenge-end-extreme-poverty-2030-chandy

Rodrik, Dani. 2014. “An African Growth Miracle?” NBER Working Paper No. 20188, June. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20188

Downloads

• Download the related powerpoint

Event Information

The world’s top economies had much to discuss at the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia last month, including reinvigorating global growth, the reduction of trade barriers, financial regulation reforms, and global infrastructure. The G-20 meeting took place at a key time for U.S. international economic policy, as it came on the heels of President Obama’s prior stops at the APEC summit and the ASEAN summit. As the U.S. joins its G-20 colleagues in aiming to boost G-20 GDP by an additional 2 percent by 2018, there remain many questions about how G-20 countries will follow through with the goals set in Brisbane.

On December 3, the Global Economy and Development program and the Economic Studies program at Brookings welcomed U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs Nathan Sheets in his first public address since being confirmed in September. Following the recent G-20 meeting, Sheets discussed his perspectives on priorities for international economic policy in the years ahead across key areas including trade, the international financial architecture, and the United States’ evolving economic relationships.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #GlobalEconomy

Video

• U.S. Economic Engagement on the International Stage: A Conversation with U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Nathan Sheets

Audio

• U.S. Economic Engagement on the International Stage: A Conversation with U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Nathan Sheets

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20141203_sheets_international_economic_engagement_transcript

“Although we are seeing a strengthening recovery in the United States, the overall performance of the global economy continues to fall short of aspirations,” said Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs Nathan Sheets to a Brookings audience yesterday. In the event, hosted by the Global Economy and Development program and the Economic Studies program at Brookings, Undersecretary Sheets described six “pillars” that form his offices “core policy agenda for the years ahead” to support “a growing and vibrant U.S. economy.”

1. Strengthening and rebalancing global growth. Undersecretary Sheets noted the “persistent and deeper asymmetry in the international economic landscape,” and called for policymakers to “work together toward mutually beneficial growth strategies” such as boosting demand.
2. Deepening engagement with emerging-market giants, such as China, India, Mexico, and Brazil. On India, for example, the undersecretary noted that “faster growth, deeper financial markets, and greater openness to trade and foreign investment promise to raise incomes, reduce poverty, and bring many more Indians into the global middle class.”
3. Framing a resilient global financial system. “To be sustained,” he said, “growth must be built on a resilient financial foundation.” (See also Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard’s remarks yesterday on the Fed’s role in financial stability.)
4. Enhancing access to capital in developing countries. “Expanding access to financial services for the over 2 billion unbanked people in the world promises to open new possibilities as the financial wherewithal in these populations grows,” he said.
5. Promoting open trade and investment. Undersecretary Sheets explained that “Increased U.S. access to foreign markets, and the consequent rise in exports of our goods and services, is an important source of job creation in the United States.” He described current trade priorities, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) concerning China, and the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) concerning India.
6. Enhancing U.S. leadership in the IMF. Undersecretary Sheets said that Treasury and the Obama administration “are firmly committed to securing approval for the 2010 IMF quota and governance reforms.” Citing the widespread support already in place for these policies, Sheets argued that “without these reforms, emerging economies may well look outside the IMF and the international economic system we helped design, potentially undermining the Fund’s ability to serve as a first responder for financial crises around the world, and also our national security and economic well-being.” He also called on the Senate to confirm six administration nominees as executive directors or alternate executive directors at the IMF and multilateral development banks.

Watch the video here:

Get a transcript of Undersecretary Sheets’ prepared remarks here.

Brookings expert Donald Kohn, the Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow, moderated the discussion. The speaker was introduced by Senior Fellow Amar Bhattacharya.

We will likely look back on 2015 as a consequential year in China’s evolving global strategy. The September crash of the stock market in Shanghai marks the first contemporary occasion when China’s internal difficulties have had global consequences. In November, China will take over the leadership of the G-20 and have an opportunity to put its stamp on the evolving tools of global governance. And on September 28, President Xi Jinping will address the world during the 70th anniversary of the only global body in which China already has full powers—the United Nations.

A rising power, cut from different cloth

But with greater consequence comes greater responsibility. President Xi’s job at the U.N. in 2015 will be harder than in recent years. For the past several years the international community has been transfixed by the narrative of the rising powers, and of American, or at least Western, decline. Now, America’s economic recovery, its energy revolution, its leadership on Ebola, and its re-engagement around the Islamic State (or ISIS)—however partial—has gutted the “American decline” narrative. 

And Xi’s putative allies in the forging of a post-American order—Russia, Brazil, and India—won’t be nearly the help to China they have often been presumed to be. President Vladimir Putin will speak against the backdrop of Russia’s aggressive strategy in Ukraine and now Syria; Brazil’s President Dilma Roussef against the backdrop of a deep recession and a huge corruption scandal; and while President Narendra Modi is still riding relatively high internationally, he’s hardly riding in a pro-China direction. 

China is more consequential than any of these other three, of course. But it faces its own challenge to its narrative as it doubles down on its assertive posture in the South China Sea and as its handling of the stock market collapse shows serious cracks in the narrative of the “Beijing model.” As Chinese growth has slowed, especially in the manufacturing sector, so has its consumption of global commodities—and the knock-on effect has been slower growth in dozens of developing countries that had ridden China’s boom. China isn’t quite the alternative “pole” to the West it has been hyped to be. 

Still, China is now clearly the number two economy in the world; the number two defense spender; the dominant force in politics and economic integration in East Asia; and an increasingly important voice on global issues. So hype and narrative aside, the world will be listening closely to what President Xi has to say at the U.N.—as they will when he takes the reigns of the G-20. 

In what direction is Chinese leadership heading?

At a 700-person-strong gala dinner in Seattle on Tuesday, President Xi rehearsed the arguments. China is committed to a peaceful rise. China has learned the lesson of the Second World War, and recognizes that military hegemony is not an option. China is committed to the multilateral order, and the U.N. Charter. He even teased the international relations scholarly community: “There is no Thucydides trap,” he said, referring to the idea that the growth of Chinese power will cause fear in the United States and lead to war. He stressed his theme about forging a “new kind of great power relations” that eschewed military competition for more creative approaches to cooperation on win/win issues. 

All these would be welcome messages at the U.N., and if he means it, they are profoundly important messages. But if Xi wants these messages to be believed, if he wants to gain credibility at the global level, he’s going to have to do more than just talk a good game. 

First, China is going to have to start acknowledging that leadership is less about abusing the privileges of power and more about absorbing costs. The world may be hungry for leadership, but it’s not hungry for leadership of the abusive kind. It’s hungry for actors capable and willing to set a direction and bear the lion’s share of the costs of action—because that’s the only thing that’s ever overcome the collective action challenges that otherwise bedevil cooperation at the international level. 

China is going to have to start acknowledging that leadership is less about abusing the privileges of power and more about absorbing costs.

Second, he has to put his strategy where his principles are. He could start with the U.N. Charter. It’s an essential document of the international order, but only if the great powers abide by its essential principles (not by every detail.) The most essential of these are the prohibition against the acquisition of territory by force and the assertion of non-interference in sovereign affairs (except with the backing of the Security Council). The United States has violated these principles, notably in Iraq—its violation was of a temporary nature, of course, but had huge consequences. Russia has violated these principles—its violation in Crimea is modest in scale but notionally permanent and a fundamental violation of the foundational principles of the U.N.

China’s actions in the South China Sea have been more subtle than these, but no less invidious or injurious to the notion of a stable international order. If China wants others to believe that it still intends for its rise to be peaceful, it needs urgently to shift strategy in the South China Sea—and it would be in a strong position, then, to call on the other great powers to recommit themselves to the principle of the non-use of force and respect for sovereignty. 

[Xi] has to put his strategy where his principles are. He could start with the U.N. Charter.

I’m reasonably optimistic about the first idea. China was among the most neuralgic of countries when it came to the global response to SARS a decade ago; it’s learned its lesson and was far more forward leaning on Ebola. It chipped in, albeit not to scale, on the eurocrisis. It’s made financial contributions to the counter-ISIS campaign. And it’s made commitments that, if kept, will make a vital difference on the climate. These efforts represent a serious start, and if President Xi expands China’s role in this kind of leadership it could position him well on global issues—especially during his G-20 presidency. 

I’m not so optimistic about the second. China shows every sign of being locked in an assertive-tilting-to-aggressive strategy in the South China Sea, consequences be damned. And with Russia also seemingly locked into a “wrong-foot the West” strategy, the United States and its allies will increasingly be pulled into an escalatory response—creating exactly the kind of Thucydidean trap President Xi ostensibly wants to avoid. (The United States bears responsibility here too, and it can also take steps to lower tensions in Asia.) 

The problem is, the further out we go along the pathway of security tensions in Asia, the more we undermine the prospects for win-win cooperation on global challenges like terrorism and climate. For now, these twin strands of strategy are in roughly equal balance—both rivalry and restraint are leitmotifs of Xi’s worldview, and of America’s. But 2015 is going to be an important testing time for the viability of this dual-strand approach. If Xi wants to start tilting the balance to win/win approaches, his speech at the U.N. is a good place to start. But even that would only be a beginning.

"Out of ammo?" The Economist recently asked of monetary policymakers. Stephen Roach has called the move by major central banks – including the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Sweden – to negative real (and, in some cases, even nominal) interest rates a “futile” effort that merely sets “the stage for the next crisis.” And, at the February G-20 finance ministers meeting, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney reportedly called these policies “ultimately a zero-sum game.” Have the major advanced economies’ central banks – which have borne the burden of sustaining anemic post-2008 recoveries – really run out of options?

It certainly seems so. Central-bank balance sheets have swelled, and policy rates have reached their “near zero” lower bounds. There is plenty of cheap water, it seems, but the horse refuses to drink. With no signs of inflation, and growth still tepid and fragile, many anticipate chronic slow growth, with some even fearing another global recession.

But policymakers have one more option: a shift to “purer” fiscal policy, in which they directly finance government spending by printing money – a so-called “helicopter drop.” The new money would bypass the financial and corporate sectors and go straight to the thirstiest horses: middle- and lower-income consumers. The money could go to them directly, and through investment in job-creating, productivity-increasing infrastructure. By placing purchasing power in the hands of those who need it most, direct monetary financing of public spending would also help to improve inclusiveness in economies where inequality is rising fast.

Helicopter drops are currently proposed by both leftist and centrist economists. In a sense, even some “conservatives” – who support more public infrastructure spending, but also want tax cuts and oppose more borrowing – de facto support helicopter drops.

Recently, more radical proposals have surfaced, reflecting a sense of urgency and widespread disappointment with the impact of current monetary policy. Beyond advocating higher minimum wages, some are calling for “reverse income policies,” with governments imposing across-the-board wage increases on private employers – a move that would drive up prices and defeat deflationary expectations. The fact that economists whose views typically fall nowhere near those of the far left are even thinking about such interventionism shows just how extreme circumstances have become.

I favor all of these proposals, in some form. The details of their implementation would obviously have to vary, depending on each economy’s circumstances. Germany, for example, is in a strong position to implement a reverse income policy, given its huge current-account surplus, though there would undoubtedly be major political barriers. More spending on education, skills upgrading, and infrastructure, however, is a no-brainer almost everywhere, and is politically more feasible.

But there is another dimension of the challenge that has so far not been emphasized nearly enough, despite the warnings of Carney, Roach, and others. Zero or negative real interest rates, when they become quasi-permanent, undermine the efficient allocation of capital and set the stage for bubbles, busts, and crises. They also contribute to further income concentration at the top by hurting small savers, while creating opportunities for large financial players to benefit from access to savings at negative real cost. As unorthodox as it may sound, it is likely that the world economy would benefit from somewhat higher interest rates.

Raising interest rates cannot, however, be a stand-alone policy. Instead, small policy-rate increases must be incorporated into a broader fiscal and distributional strategy, implemented alongside more public spending on infrastructure and skills upgrading, as well as some gentle forms of income policies, employing, for example, “moral suasion.”

Even with such an approach, however, major central banks would have to coordinate their policies. If a single major central bank attempted to introduce higher interest rates, its economy would immediately be “punished” through currency appreciation, declining competitiveness, and falling exports, all of which would undermine aggregate demand and employment.

If the major central banks decided to increase their policy rates simultaneously, these spillover effects would cancel one another out. A coordinated move, perhaps raising rates in two modest 25 or 30 basis-point increments, would be neutral in terms of exchange rates and short-term competitiveness, even as it moved real interest rates back into positive territory. If successful, this effort could eventually be followed by further small increases, creating space for more traditional monetary-policy “ammunition” to be deployed in the future.

Success also hinges on the simultaneous pursuit of fiscal expansion worldwide, with each country’s efforts calibrated according to its fiscal space and current-account position. The expansion should finance a global program of investment in physical and human infrastructure, focusing on the two key challenges of our time: cleaner energy and skills for the digital age.

A coordinated and well-timed policy package could boost global growth, improve capital allocation, support a more equitable income distribution, and reduce the danger of speculative bubbles. The various meetings in the run-up to the G-20 summit in China, including the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, would be ideal forums for designing such a package, and advancing its implementation.

Economic orthodoxy and independent actions have clearly failed. It is time for policymakers to recognize that innovative international policy cooperation is not a luxury; sometimes – like today – it is a necessity.

Event Information

As China presides over the G-20 for the first time, the country has the significant opportunity to impact a system of global governance under increasing stress. At the same time, while enduring the costs and realizing the benefits of its leadership role, China can address critical issues including innovation, global security, infrastructure development, and climate change. Even as China recently has made its own forays into regional institution-building with the launch of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, its G-20 presidency presents a new platform from which the country can advance its own agenda as part of a broader global agenda. As the first and second largest economies in the world, the United States and China can benefit enormously by understanding each other’s perspective.

Think tanks like the Brookings-Tsinghua Center have been playing an important role in this bilateral and multilateral exchange of views. On March 22, in celebration of the 10th anniversaries of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center and the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, Tsinghua University hosted a conference to examine how China can realize the 2016 G-20 theme of “an innovative, invigorated, interconnected, and inclusive world economy.” The event began with introductory keynote remarks on the substantive advancements China and the United States have made in think tank development and people-to-people diplomacy, followed by an additional set of keynote remarks and panel discussions presenting Chinese and American perspectives on the G-20 agenda and the state of global governance.

Event Materials

• Chinas G20 Presidency Transcript

Introduction:  The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and the resulting discharge of millions of gallons of crude oil into the sea demonstrated graphically the challenge of environmental protection in the ocean waters shared by Cuba and the United States.

While the quest for deepwater drilling of oil and gas may slow as a result of the latest calamity, it is unlikely to stop. It came as little surprise, for example, that Repsol recently announced plans to move forward with exploratory oil drilling in Cuban territorial waters later this year.

As Cuba continues to develop its deepwater oil and natural gas reserves, the consequence to the United States of a similar mishap occurring in Cuban waters moves from the theoretical to the actual. The sobering fact that a Cuban spill could foul hundreds of miles of American coastline and do profound harm to important marine habitats demands cooperative and proactive planning by Washington and Havana to minimize or avoid such a calamity. Also important is the planning necessary to prevent and, if necessary, respond to incidents arising from this country’s oil industry that, through the action of currents and wind, threaten Cuban waters and shorelines.

While Washington is working to prevent future disasters in U.S. waters like the Deepwater Horizon, its current policies foreclose the ability to respond effectively to future oil disasters—whether that disaster is caused by companies at work in Cuban waters, or is the result of companies operating in U.S. waters.

Downloads

• Download Map of the North Cuba Basin
• Download Full Paper

INTRODUCTION 

Last year, President Obama delivered the first step in his promise to reach out to the Cuban people and support their desire for freedom and self-determination. Premised on the belief that Cuban Americans are our best ambassadors for freedom in Cuba, the Obama administration lifted restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans. The pent-up demand for Cuban American contact with the island revealed itself: within three months of the new policy, 300,000 Cuban Americans traveled to Havana -- 50,000 more than for all of the previous year.  Experts estimate that over $600 million in annual remittances has flowed from the United States to Cuba in 2008 and 2009 and informal flows of consumer goods is expanding rapidly.

The administration’s new policy has the potential to create new conditions for change in Cuba. However, if U.S. policy is to be truly forward looking it must further expand its focus from the Castro government to the well-being of the Cuban people. Recent developments on the island, including the ongoing release of dozens of political prisoners, have helped create the right political moment to take action.  The administration should institute a cultural diplomacy strategy that authorizes a broad cross-section of American private citizens and civil society to travel to the island to engage Cuban society and share their experiences as citizens of a democratic country.  Reducing restrictions on people-to-people contact is not a “concession,” but a strategic tool to advance U.S. policy objectives to support the emergence of a Cuban nation in which the Cuban people determine their political and economic future.

The President has the authority to reinstate a wide range of “purposeful,” non-touristic travel to Cuba in order to implement a cultural diplomacy strategy. Under President Clinton, the Baltimore Orioles played baseball in Havana and in return the Cuban national team was invited to Baltimore. U.S. students studied abroad in Cuba and engaged in lively discussions with their fellow students and host families. U.S. religious groups provided food and medicines to community organizations, helping them assist their membership.  However, in 2004, such travel was curtailed, severely limiting U.S. insights about the needs, interests and organizational capacities of community groups and grassroots organizations. Today, visitors traveling under an educational license, for example, number a meager 2,000 annually.

Downloads

• Download Full Paper

The “green” or “clean” or low-carbon economy—defined as the sector of the economy that produces goods and services with an environmental benefit—remains at once a compelling aspiration and an enigma.

As a matter of aspiration, no swath of the economy has been more widely celebrated as a source of economic renewal and potential job creation. Yet, the clean economy remains an enigma: hard to assess. Not only do “green” or “clean” activities and jobs related to environmental aims pervade all sectors of the U.S. economy; they also remain tricky to define and isolate—and count.

The clean economy has remained elusive in part because, in the absence of standard definitions and data, strikingly little is known about its nature, size, and growth at the critical regional level.

Seeking to help address these problems, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings worked with Battelle’s Technology Partnership Practice to develop, analyze, and comment on a detailed database of establishment-level employment statistics pertaining to a sensibly defined assemblage of clean economy industries in the United States and its metropolitan areas.

"Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment" concludes that:

The clean economy, which employs some 2.7 million workers, encompasses a significant number of jobs in establishments spread across a diverse group of industries. Though modest in size, the clean economy employs more workers than the fossil fuel industry and bulks larger than bioscience but remains smaller than the IT-producing sectors. Most clean economy jobs reside in mature segments that cover a wide swath of activities including manufacturing and the provision of public services such as wastewater and mass transit. A smaller portion of the clean economy encompasses newer segments that respond to energy-related challenges. These include the solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, fuel cell, smart grid, biofuel, and battery industries.

The clean economy grew more slowly in aggregate than the national economy between 2003 and 2010, but newer “cleantech” segments produced explosive job gains and the clean economy outperformed the nation during the recession. Overall, today’s clean economy establishments added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, expanding at an annual rate of 3.4 percent. This performance lagged the growth in the national economy, which grew by 4.2 percent annually over the period (if job losses from establishment closings are omitted to make the data comparable). However, this measured growth heavily reflected the fact that many longer-standing companies in the clean economy—especially those involved in housing- and building-related segments—laid off large numbers of workers during the real estate crash of 2007 and 2008, while sectors unrelated to the clean economy (mainly health care) created many more new jobs nationally. At the same time, newer clean economy establishments— especially those in young energy-related segments such as wind energy, solar PV, and smart grid—added jobs at a torrid pace, albeit from small bases.

The clean economy is manufacturing and export intensive. Roughly 26 percent of all clean economy jobs lie in manufacturing establishments, compared to just 9 percent in the broader economy. On a per job basis, establishments in the clean economy export roughly twice the value of a typical U.S. job ($20,000 versus $10,000). The electric vehicles (EV), green chemical products, and lighting segments are all especially manufacturing intensive while the biofuels, green chemicals, and EV industries are highly export intensive.

The clean economy offers more opportunities and better pay for low- and middle-skilled workers than the national economy as a whole. Median wages in the clean economy—meaning those in the middle of the distribution—are 13 percent higher than median U.S. wages. Yet a disproportionate percentage of jobs in the clean economy are staffed by workers with relatively little formal education in moderately well-paying “green collar” occupations.

Among regions, the South has the largest number of clean economy jobs though the West has the largest share relative to its population. Seven of the 21 states with at least 50,000 clean economy jobs are in the South. Among states, California has the highest number of clean jobs but Alaska and Oregon have the most per worker.

Most of the country’s clean economy jobs and recent growth concentrate within the largest metropolitan areas. Some 64 percent of all current clean economy jobs and 75 percent of its newer jobs created from 2003 to 2010 congregate in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas.

The clean economy permeates all of the nation’s metropolitan areas, but it manifests itself in varied configurations. Metropolitan area clean economies can be categorized into four-types: service-oriented, manufacturing, public sector, and balanced. New York, through mass transit, embodies a service orientation; so does San Francisco through professional services and Las Vegas through architectural services. Many Midwestern and Southern metros like Louisville; Cleveland; Greenville, SC; and Little Rock—but also San Jose in the West—host clean economies that are heavily manufacturing oriented. State capitals are among those with a disproportionate share of clean jobs in the public sector (e.g. Harrisburg, Sacramento, Raleigh, and Springfield). Finally, some metros—such as Atlanta; Salt Lake City; Portland, OR; and Los Angeles— balance multi-dimensional clean economies.

Strong industry clusters boost metros’ growth performance in the clean economy. Clustering entails proximity to businesses in similar or related industries. Establishments located in counties containing a significant number of jobs from other establishments in the same segment grew much faster than more isolated establishments from 2003 to 2010. Overall, clustered establishments grew at a rate that was 1.4 percentage points faster each year than non-clustered (more isolated) establishments. Examples include professional environmental services in Houston, solar photovoltaic in Los Angeles, fuel cells in Boston, and wind in Chicago.

The measurements and trends presented here offer a mixed picture of a diverse array of environmentally-oriented industry segments growing modestly even as a sub-set of clean energy, energy efficiency, and related segments grow much faster than the nation (albeit from a small base) and in ways that are producing a desirable array of jobs, including in manufacturing and export-oriented fields.

As to what governments, policymakers, and regional leaders should do to catalyze faster and broader growth across the U.S. clean economy, it is clear that the private sector will play the lead role, but governments have a role too. In this connection, the fact that significant policy uncertainties and gaps are weakening market demand for clean economy goods and services, chilling finance, and raising questions about the clean innovation pipeline reinforces the need for engagement and reform. Not only are other nations bidding to secure global production and the jobs that come with it but the United States currently risks failing to exploit growing world demand. And so this report concludes that vigorous private sector-led growth needs to be co-promoted through complementary engagements by all levels of the nation’s federal system to ensure the existence of well-structured markets, a favorable investment climate, and a rich stock of cutting-edge technology—as well as strong regional cast to all efforts. Along these lines, the report recommends that governments help:

Scale up the market by taking steps to catalyze vibrant domestic demand for low-carbon and environmentally-oriented goods and services. Intensified “green” procurement efforts by all levels of government are one such market-making engagement. But there are others. Congress and the federal government could help by putting a price on carbon, passing a national clean energy standard (CES), and moving to ensure more rational cost recovery on new transmission links for the delivery of renewable energy to urban load centers. States can adopt or strengthen their own clean energy standards, reduce the initial costs of energy efficiency and renewable energy adoption, and pursue electricity market reform to facilitate the use of clean and efficient solutions. And localities can also support adoption by expediting permitting for green projects, adopting green building and other standards, and adopting innovative financing tools to reduce the upfront costs of investing in clean technologies.

Ensure adequate finance by moving to address the serious shortage of affordable, risk-tolerant, and larger-scale capital that now impedes the scale-up of numerous clean economy industry segments. On this front Congress should create an emerging technology deployment finance entity to address the commercialization “Valley of Death” and also work to rationalize and reform the myriad tax provisions and incentives that currently encourage capital investments in clean economy projects. States, for their part, can supplement private lending activity by providing guarantees and participating loans or initial capital for revolving loan funds targeting clean economy projects using new or improved technologies. And for that matter regions and localities can also help narrow the deployment finance gap by helping to reduce the costs and uncertainty of projects by expediting their physical build-out, whether by managing zoning and permitting issues or even pre-approving sites.

Drive innovation by investing both more and differently in the clean economy innovation system. With the needed major scale-up of investment levels unlikely for now, Congress at least needs to embrace continued incremental growth of key energy and environmental research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) budgets. At the same time, Congress should continue its recent institutional experimentation through measured expansion of such recent start-ups as the Energy Frontier Research Centers, ARPA-E, and Energy Innovation Hubs programs. Two worthy additional experiments would be the creation of a water sciences innovation center and the establishment of a regional clean economy consortia initiative. States can also advance the clean economy through maintaining and expanding their own RD&D efforts, perhaps by tapping state clean energy funds where they exist. All should be focused and prioritized through a rigorous, data-driven analysis of the nature, growth, and strengths of local clean economy innovation clusters.

In addition, the “Sizing the Clean Economy“ emphasizes that in working on each of these fronts federal, state, and regional leaders need to:

Focus on regions, meaning that all parties need to place detailed knowledge of local industry dynamics and regional growth strategies near the center of efforts to advance the clean economy. While the federal government should increase its investment in new regional innovation and industry cluster programs such as the Economic Development Administration’s i6 Green Challenge, states should work to improve the information base about local clean economy industry clusters and move to support regionally crafted initiatives for advancing them. Regional actors, meanwhile, should take the lead in using data and analysis to understand the local clean economy in detail; identify competitive strengths; and then move to formulate strong, “bottom up” strategies for overcoming key clusters’ binding constraints. Employing cluster intelligence and strategy to design and tune regional workforce development strategies will be a critical regional priority.

***

The measurements, trends, and discussions offered here provide an encouraging but also challenging assessment of the ongoing development of the clean economy in the United States and its regions. In many respects, the analysis warrants excitement. As the nation continues to search for new sources of high-quality growth, the present findings depict a sizable and diverse array of industry segments that is—in key private-sector areas—expanding rapidly at a time of sluggish national growth. With smart policy support, broader, more rapid growth seems possible. At the same time, however, the information presented here is challenging, most notably because the growth of the clean economy has almost certainly been depressed by significant policy problems and uncertainties.

That question is: Will the nation marshal the will to make the most of those industries?

Downloads

• Full Report
• Executive Summary
• Methodology Appendix
• Media Memo

Video

• Sizing the Clean Economy

For all the debate, speculation, and controversy that has surrounded the hoped-for growth of the so-called “clean” economy and “green jobs” one thing has been in pretty short supply: facts. 

For all the talk of its alluring promise, the clean or green economy remains an enigma, in large part due to the continued absence of standard national definitions and data.

Today that changes with a new report assessing the current nature, size, and growth of the “green” or “clean” economy in U.S. regions. 

Developed by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program in partnership with Battelle’s Technology Partnership Practice, our report and its underlying database--entitled “Sizing the Clean Economy”--are not perfect accountings. Still, I think you will agree they offer a compelling new national and metropolitan look at a sector of the economy that has remained at once an important aspiration and a frustrating enigma. Do look over the report; watch video of our release discussion; and check out the special interactive mapping tool we’ve developed--both of which are aimed at shedding further light on the geography of this hard-to-assess sector.

Over the last 18 months we’ve developed and analyzed a detailed database of establishment-level employment statistics pertaining to a sensibly defined assemblage of low-carbon and environmentally oriented industries in the United States and its metropolitan areas.

Covering the years 2003 to 2010 for larger U.S. metros, the resulting information provides a new source of timely information that is both consistently applied so as to allow cross-region comparisons but detailed enough to be of some use to inform national, state, and regional leaders on the dynamics of the U.S. low-carbon and environmental goods and services super-sector as they are transpiring in U.S. regions.

To be sure, localized drill-downs in particular places may capture a fuller profile in some regions. But overall, our new information provides what we believe is a plausible, useful, first-of-its-kind measure of the size and growth of the clean economy as it is occurring in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. 

What is more, our definition, approach, and data have been structured as much as possible to anticipate the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own forthcoming “green jobs” count, due next year at somewhat broader levels of geography.  It’s time that all U.S. regions begin to have access to some at least rough order-of-magnitude facts about the size and shape of their clean economies.

Event Information

To access a curated stream of tweets from the #CleanEcon event, please visit this Storify page. Below you will find this event's full webcast archive--or, you may view one of four segments taken from that webcast.

No swath of the U.S. economy has been more widely celebrated as a source of economic renewal than the “clean” or “green” economy. However, surprisingly little is really known about these industries’ nature, size and growth—especially at the regional level. As a result, debates on transitioning to a green or clean economy are frequently short on facts and long on speculation as the nation searches for new sources of economic growth.

On July 13, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings brought together business, economic development and political leaders to review the progress of clean industries, identify policy issues and opportunities, and consider how faster and broader growth of the clean economy could be encouraged at the national, state and regional level. A report and first-of-its-kind database, produced in collaboration with Battelle’s Technology Partnership Practice, was released at the event, providing new measures of the clean economy at the national and metropolitan levels. Also featured was an interactive web tool that allows users to track jobs, growth, segments, and other variables nationally, by state and by region.

Brookings Managing Director William Antholis welcomed participants and Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, presented the findings of this major new report on the status of the U.S. clean economy. Panel discussions followed, presenting the corporate and regional perspective.

After each panel, the speakers took audience questions.

Go to the report »

Go to the interactive web tool »

Video

• Introducing the Metropolitan Clean Economy
• Panel One: The Clean Economy, Firm by Firm
• Panel Two: The Clean Economy, Region by Region
• Clean Economy Closing Dialogue
• Growing the Clean Economy in Philadelphia

Audio

• Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment
• Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment
• Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment
• Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment

Editor's Note: During an event to launch a new report assessing the clean economy, Bruce Katz delivered a presentation highlighting the clean sector’s contribution to boosting exports and increasing manufacturing jobs. Katz's presentation also is featured in an iBook for the iPad.

Thank you, [Brookings Managing Director] Bill [Antholis] for that introduction, and for your leadership in this institution and more broadly in the national debate on climate change.

Before proceeding, I want to first thank my colleagues, Mark Muro, Jonathan Rothwell, Devashree Saha, and our friends at Battelle, particularly Mitch Horowitz and Marty Grueber for their creativity, collegiality, and painstaking attention to detail through a long and rigorous research effort. 

I’d also like to offer a special thanks to the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the General Electric Foundation, Living Cities, and the Surdna Foundation for their support and guidance of the program’s Clean Economy work, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, who is supporting our policy and practice work around the clean economy in states and metropolitan areas.  

Today, we celebrate not just the release of a report, “Sizing the Clean Economy” but the unveiling of an interactive web site to spur further research, policy and practice, all freely available at www.brookings.edu/cleaneconomy.

We want today’s forum to be a participatory event and urge all of you in the audience and following on our webcast to engage online early and often. Please comment on Twitter via the hashtag created for this event (#cleanecon) and feel free to engage directly with me at @Bruce_Katz and Mark at @MarkMuro1 and send us any questions at MetroQ@brookings.edu.

The question before us: at a time of economic uncertainty and federal polarization, can America’s cities and metropolitan areas lead the nation to a clean economy—to create jobs in the near term and retool and restructure our economy for the long haul?

There is no doubt in our minds that moving to a clean economy is an environmental and energy imperative.  But consumers, companies, and cities are also sending an unequivocal signal: this is a market proposition and an economic transformation as profound as the information revolution.

Consumers around the globe are starting to demand lower carbon, energy efficient products and services: one in four drivers in the U.S., Europe, China, and Japan plans to buy electric vehicles when they are readily available. That would put about 50 million electric cars on the road in places from Baltimore to Beijing, Torino to Tokyo.

Companies see the clean economy as a growth sector: three quarters of major global corporations plan to increase “cleantech” budgets from 2012 to 2014. Global private investment in clean energy alone is up more than 6 fold since 2004, reaching $154 billion in 2010.

Cities and their metropolitan areas, early adapters of sustainable practice, are now competing to build out their special niches in the clean economy. I will provide details later on Greater Seattle’s bold strategy to be the global hub of clean IT. 

For two years, the Brookings Metro Program has hammered home the notion that the United States must pursue a different growth model post recession, a “next economy” that is driven by exports, powered by low carbon, fueled by innovation and rich with opportunity—and delivered by the large metropolitan areas that drive our economy.

Today, we will literally flip the dial and place the clean economy in the center of our macro vision and unveil the scale, scope and spatial geography of this promising growth engine. 

We have three sharp and timely findings.

First, the clean economy is a significant, diverse emerging market in the United States, already populated by some 2.7 million jobs. It is disproportionately manufacturing and export intensive—and offers better prospects for low and middle skilled workers than the national economy as a whole. This is exactly the kind of economy we want to build post-recession.

Second, metropolitan areas are on the vanguard of the clean economy due to their concentration of innovative drivers, as well as the built environment in which most people live, work and play. As in exports, metros specialize in different sectors of the clean economy—and the clustering of firms is catalyzing productive and sustainable growth.

Third, the U.S. must unleash the entrepreneurial energies and dynamism of our metropolitan engines to accelerate growth of the clean economy. That will require a strategic mix of private sector innovation and public policy that is stable, supportive, and predictable.  Given the nature and scale of global competition, U.S. governments, at all levels, must “get in the game” rather than “get out of the way.”  Smart public action can leverage private investment, create desperately needed jobs, and cement our position as the leading edge of innovative growth.

The stakes are very high. Make no mistake—we have a lot to do here and we are falling behind globally. Our competitors in mature and rising economies—Germany, Japan, and China—fully understand the potential of clean, and they are working at warp speed to set favorable conditions for rapid growth and grab their share of the next market revolution. We need to get our public-private act together—in cities and metros, in state capitals, at the now polarized federal level.

So let’s start with our first finding: the clean economy is a significant, diverse emerging market in the United States  

In total, we find there are 2.7 million clean economy jobs all across the United States. To put that number in perspective: the clean economy is nearly twice the size of the biosciences field and 60 percent of the 4.8 million strong IT sector. As you can tell, the clean economy also has more jobs than fossil fuel related industries.  

 Our definition of the clean economy is as follows:

“Any economic activity—measured in terms of establishments and jobs—that produces goods and services with an environmental benefit, or adds value to such products using skills or technologies that are uniquely applied to those products.”

This definition yields a broad and varied picture of economic activity: old and new, public and private, “green” and “blue.”

At the highest level, we find establishments and jobs grouping together in 5 discernible categories: Renewable Energy; Energy and Resource Efficiency; Greenhouse Gas Reduction; Environmental Management, and Recycling; Agricultural and Natural Resources Conservation; and Education and Compliance. Here we follow the categorization the Bureau of Labor Statistics is using for its own “green jobs” assessment due next year.

These categories then naturally break down into fine-grained segments, ultimately 39 in all.

Renewable Energy, for example, has nine segments, including Solar and Geothermal power, and Renewable Energy Services.

Energy and Resource Efficiency has 13 separate segments, from Electric Vehicle Technology to Water Efficient Products.

Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Environmental Management, and Recycling has 12 segments including Green Chemical Products and Professional Environmental Services.

And so on—you get the idea.

Each of the segments, in turn, has a distinct economic profile (cutting across multiple activities, occupations and skills) and a distinct spatial geography given the special assets and attributes of different places.

Let’s drill down a little so we all get on the same page.

Under renewable energy, let’s look at solar photovoltaic, a young rapidly innovating area. This segment employs more than 24,000 people in 555 establishments.

The list includes two major solar manufacturing firms, First Solar—with a major plant in Toledo—and BP Solar—with a facility in the Washington, DC metro, and Bombard Electric in Las Vegas, which helps businesses in that region—casinos, hotels, shopping centers—shift their energy use.

Under Greenhouse Gas Reduction, let’s take a look at Professional Environmental Services, an example of the role that expert services can play in domestic and global markets. This segment boasts some 140,000 workers in 5,400 establishments.

CH2M Hill in Denver provides environmental consulting services throughout the U.S. and the world, Ecology & Environment is a science and technical services firm with a large presence in Los Angeles, and Black & Veatch, out of Kansas City, is an engineering firm specializing in areas from environmental permitting to remediation.

One more definitional cut to consider: we have identified a group of young, super innovative “Cleantech” industries that cross multiple categories and show enormous growth potential. These industries are populated by companies with a median age of 15 years or less.

Most notably, this portfolio of segments—including wind power, battery technologies, bio fuels, and smart grid—grew about 8 percent a year since 2003, or twice as fast as the rest of the economy.

The clean economy, however, is not just broad and diverse, it is disproportionately productive.

The clean economy is export intensive, already taking advantage of the demand for clean goods and services coming from abroad.

In 2009, clean economy establishments exported almost $54 billion, including about $49.5 billion in goods and an additional $4.5 billion in services.

Significantly, clean economy establishments are by our calculations twice as export intensive as the national economy: over $20,000 worth of exports is sold for every job in the clean economy each year compared to just $10,400 worth of exports for the average U.S. job.

The export orientation of the clean economy today provides a platform for more exports tomorrow. With rising nations rapidly urbanizing, the demand for sustainable growth in all its dimensions will only grow, and the U.S. has the potential to serve that demand.

The clean economy also supports a production-driven innovation economy.

We find it employs a higher percentage of scientists than the national economy. Ten percent of clean economy jobs are in science and engineering, compared to 5 percent in U.S. economy generally.

As we now know, manufacturing and innovation are inextricably linked. This provides a stark challenge to the U.S.: we will innovate less unless we produce more.

By our account, the clean economy is a vehicle for production.

Twenty six percent of all clean economy jobs are involved in manufacturing, compared to just 9 percent of jobs in the economy as a whole.

Manufacturing accounts for a majority of the jobs in over half of the clean economy segments, with many sectors having a supermajority of production-oriented jobs.

Solar and wind energy, for example, have more than two thirds of their jobs in manufacturing. And some segments, including appliances, water efficient products, and electric vehicle technologies have over 90 percent of their jobs in manufacturing.

The good news: clean manufacturing is growing, even in the face of national declines in manufacturing employment. 

Finally, the clean economy is opportunity rich, providing prospects for a wide range of workers, and good wages up and down the skills ladder.

The clean economy is easy to enter, available to people of all skill levels: 45 percent of all clean jobs are held by workers with a high school diploma or less, compared to only 37 percent of U.S. jobs.

Once a worker enters the field, he or she is more likely to receive career-building training, as 41 percent of clean jobs offer medium to long-term training, compared to 23 percent of U.S. jobs.

The payoff is higher wages: the median wage in the clean economy is almost $44,000 for the average occupation, significantly higher than the national equivalent of $38,000 and change.

In summary, the clean economy is the kind of economy we want to build: export oriented, innovation fueled, opportunity rich, and balanced.

So here is our second major finding, metros are on the vanguard of the clean economy

Here is the heart of the American economy: 100 metropolitan areas that after decades of growth take up only 12 percent of our land mass, but harbor two-thirds of our population and generate 75 percent of our gross domestic product. 

These communities form a new economic geography, enveloping cities and suburbs, exurbs and rural towns.

Our research shows the extent to which these top 100 metros, in the aggregate, are driving growth in the Clean Economy.

In 2010, they constitute an increasing share of clean economy jobs, almost 64 percent.

And they include an outsized share, 74 percent, of jobs in cleantech industries, including extraordinarily high shares in solar photovoltaic, battery technologies, smart grid, and wind energy.

Innovative clean jobs are predominately in the top 100 metros because these places concentrate the assets that drive innovation, from initial research through commercialization through ultimate deployment

The major metros are also leading the growth of clean economy jobs around the built environment. They harbor 78 percent of jobs in public mass transit, and 90 percent of the jobs in green architecture, design and construction since moving people more efficiently and making buildings energy efficient will primarily be a metropolitan act, given where most people live and travel, and businesses locate.

Incredibly, metros also include a decent share of clean jobs that are traditionally rural, with at least 23 percent of jobs in resource-intensive activities like hydropower, sustainable forestry products, and biofuels, and more than half of organic food and farming jobs.

Metro economies, of course, do not exist in the aggregate; they have distinctive starting points and distinctive assets, attributes and advantages. 

Our research digs deep to profile the clean economy potential of each of the top 100 metro areas.

Four metro areas—New York, L.A., Chicago and Washington—are supersized job centers, with more than 70,000 jobs apiece in the clean economy in 2010. The New York metro alone has more than 152,000 clean economy jobs.

Other major metros—Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Houston and Dallas—are also key players, with more than 38,000 jobs apiece as of that year.

Yet this is not just about the largest metros. As we see here, a different group of small and medium sized metros have more than 3.3 percent of their jobs situated in the clean economy. Albany leads the way, with an impressive 6.3 percent of its jobs in the clean economy.

The power of metros is the power of agglomeration, networks and clusters. 

Our report finds that clusters—the proximity of firms to businesses in related industries—boost metros’ growth performance in the clean economy, and metros facilitate clustering.

Examples include professional environmental services in Houston, solar photovoltaic in Los Angeles, fuel cells in Boston, wind in Chicago, water industries in Milwaukee, and energy efficiency in Philadelphia.

We can talk about clusters in the abstract, but its best to see them in practice from the ground up.

So let’s travel to the Philadelphia metropolis—the nation’s fifth largest—which includes the city of Philadelphia and surrounding counties.

Philadelphia is the fifth largest clean economy job center in the country.

Here we can find the advanced research engines of the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel in University City, who have partnered together on clean energy research and have provided a steady stream of talented workers to public, private and nonprofit firms and intermediaries.

These universities are part of the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster, based at the Navy Yard, on the Delaware River.  This consortium received $129 million in federal funding from multiple agencies to demonstrate the efficacy of new building energy efficient components, systems and models.

The consortium includes strong support of City Hall, led by Mayor Michael Nutter, who has pioneered smart skills training in the energy efficient sector as well as the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, which has been an investor in the Navy Yard.

And then, of course, there are firms and companies, the fuel of the economy, located throughout the Philadelphia metropolis.

Downtown we find Veridity Energy, a small smart grid firm with powerful technology tools. The density of Center City supports a healthy mix of highly skilled service firms. Just around the corner is Realwinwin, which provides finance services to companies making capital investments in energy efficiency.

But metropolitan economies cross city and county borders because different kinds of firms require different urban and suburban footprints—so if we look out to the suburb of Radnor, just past Bryn Mawr and I-476, we find Iberdrola, the second largest wind operator in the United States and a subsidiary of a major Spanish renewable energy company and an example of the wave of foreign direct investment that can help the U.S. build out the clean economy.   

The Philadelphia story reveals why cities and metro areas power our economy: they are hyper linked networks of private firms and public and nonprofit institutions that fertilize ideas, share workers, extend innovation, enhance competitiveness and catalyze growth.

Which leads to our final proposition: to build the next economy the U.S. must unleash the entrepreneurial energies and dynamism of our metropolitan engines.

We compete in a fiercely competitive world.

While America continues to debate the legitimacy of global warming research, our competitors in established nations like Germany, Japan and the U.K. and rising nations like China are taking transformative steps to grow their clean economies in the precise places—Munich, Tokyo, London, Shanghai—that drive their national economies. 

The United States can compete with these and other nations. No other nation can match us in domestic demand, advanced research, venture capital, the power of metro concentration.

But our potential will not be realized unless we provide a strong policy platform for the build out of the clean economy. 

Four steps are essential:  

Step one: scale-up markets by catalyzing demand for clean economy goods and services.  

Step two: drive innovation by investing in advanced R&D at scale, over a sustained period and via new distributed networks.

Step three: catalyze finance to produce and deploy more of what we invent. 

And step four: align with cities and metros to realize the synergies of clustering and place.  

Our competitors know that economy shaping of this magnitude should start at the national scale.

And so, in a perfect world, we would have our federal government create a framework for growth and success.

We have seen some of that leadership in the past few years, through: the procurement driven, market scaling efforts of the Department of Defense, the creation of new innovation vehicles like ARPA-E, some of the financial investments of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program, and the metro-supporting investments in new energy regional innovation clusters—like the Greater Philadelphia example—supported by agencies with diverse sets of missions and resources, including DOE, Commerce, Labor, Education, and SBA. 

But with our global competitors continuously upping their goals and expanding their commitments, we desperately need our federal government to go further and act with vision and ambition and consistency.

To scale-up markets, Congress should enact a national clean energy standard (CES) that signals a long term, consistent commitment to alternative energy sources.

To drive innovation, Congress should embrace the call by the American Energy Innovation Council, led by corporate titans like Bill Gates and Jeff Immelt, to invest $16 billion annually in clean energy research and development through ARPA-E and networks of institutions that are multi-disciplinary and engage seamlessly with the private sector.

To catalyze finance, Congress should authorize a technology deployment finance entity—a Green Bank for short—to provide finance of the right scale and risk tolerance to ensure that ideas generated in America lead to products made in America.

Congress should also rationalize, reform, and selectively extend the myriad tax provisions and incentives that currently support the clean economy but which are now chaotic, unstable, inconsistent, and obtuse about evoking innovation and steady price declines from maturing clean technologies.

And to align with regions, Congress should more than double the number of energy innovation hubs and clusters that are seeded and funded.

Frankly, it is not difficult to lay out what reforms and investments are needed to grow the clean economy. Our competitors have given us clear guidance on that score. The only issue is whether our federal government, riven by excessive partisanship and ideological polarization, can muster the will to get anything done.  

Fortunately in the U.S. we have a default proposition when our national government falters, our states act as our “laboratories of democracy” and, as California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom recently observed, our cities and metros act as the laboratories of innovation.

And so that’s how, for the time being, we will need to build our clean economy in the United States, the hard way, from the ground up.

The good news: there is no shortage of policy innovation and political commitment at the state and metro scale.

To scale up markets, California has set an aggressive renewable portfolio standard of 33 percent renewable energy by 2020. With this strong foundation, San Jose and other cities and counties are doing their part to facilitate consumer adoption: streamlining or even eliminating building permitting for solar panels.

To drive innovation, Wisconsin has created the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to leverage that metro’s rising position in the blue economy. The Milwaukee Water Council is building on this, spearheading a network of scientists and companies to realize Milwaukee’s ambition to be a global hub for freshwater research, firm creation, and business expansion. 

To catalyze finance, Connecticut recently created the Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority. Capitalized with some $50 million annually, this Green Bank could accelerate the generation, transmission, and adoption of alternative energy.

At the municipal level, New York City has capitalized an Energy Efficiency Corporation to spur the financing of energy efficiency in the building sector.

And, finally, smart metros are now moving to build out their distinctive industry clusters.  In Greater Seattle, for example, the Puget Sound Regional Council has developed a business plan to cement that metro’s natural position as a global hub of energy efficient building technologies. This smart public-private initiative includes the establishment of a facility to test, integrate and verify promising energy efficient products and services before launching them to market.

Significantly, this metro vision is being supported by the State of Washington, which has committed to match any federal investment in the testing network.

Let me conclude with this vision: Let’s imagine a world in 20 years where the clean economy permeates every aspect of our economic and social fabric and, in the process, enhances productivity and competitiveness, lowers energy use, spurs further innovation, and provides quality work for a broad cross section of our citizenry. 

We believe today’s research—and the power of millions of consumers, tens of thousands of companies and hundreds of cities and metros—gives us the hope that this vision can become reality.

We have the data to set a platform for sustainable growth.

We have the roadmap to set the foundation for smart investment.

We have the entrepreneurs in all sectors to innovate and replicate. 

Let’s build the clean economy—worker by worker, firm by firm, metro by metro.

Thank you.

A new report and interactive map, "Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment" includes a first-of-its-kind database providing new measures of the clean economy at the national and metropolitan levels. Although the clean economy employs millions of people and exists in every U.S. region, market challenges hinder its ability to keep pace with global competitors. Mark Muro talks about how this economy is a driver of growth and innovation.

Video

• Sizing the Clean Economy

Editor's Note: During an appearance on the Platts Energy Week program, Mark Muro discussed jobs in the green sector, using findings from the "Sizing the Clean Economy" report.

Host BILL LOVELESS: Green jobs – what are they? And can they make much of a contribution to the economy? It’s an ongoing debate in Washington, and the rest of the U.S. for that matter, and it’s a knotty one because defining the term “green jobs” is difficult.

But now the Brookings Institution has taken a crack at it with a new report, “Sizing the Clean Economy.” One of the authors, Mark Muro, with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, joins me now. Mark, do you think you’ve defined, once and for all, what the clean economy is?

MARK MURO: The answer to that is “no.” This has been an ongoing discussion for decades, really. On the other hand, I do think that we have done is tried to embrace good precedents, good sensible precedents from Europe. The European Statistical Agency comes at it similar to the way we did. But we’ve also anticipated where the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here in the U.S., will be next year when it offers our first U.S. official definition.

LOVELESS: A summer preview, maybe. I know the Bureau of Labor Statistics is working on that. Should this report ... tell me a little bit about this report — where the jobs are and should this in any way change the way we look at green jobs.

MURO: I think one thing that comes from this is that it’s a broad swath of, sometimes not very glamorous, industries that are very familiar. Wastewater, mass transit – those are properly viewed as green jobs because they take pressure off the environment. They keep our environment clean.

Watch Mark Muro's full interview with Platts Energy Week »

"Sizing the Clean Economy,” which is based on the Brookings-Battelle Clean Economy Database, is a signature project of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. The database is a collaborative effort of Brookings Metro and the Battelle Technology Partnership Program and aims to explore the size, growth, and geography of the "clean" or green economy through the production of detailed data on U.S. establishments and workers engaged in producing goods and services that benefit the environment, especially in the nation’s large metropolitan areas."