Archive for the ‘experts’ Category
World Standards Day: Celebrate or Mourn?
Filed under: experts, governance, international, regulations, standards, trade |
Comments (2) Today happens to be World Standards Day, a day that honours the work of the thousands of experts involved in setting the huge range of voluntary international standards that regulate production and trade in a globalized economy. Depending on your view of globalization, it’s a day either to be celebrated or mourned.
The standards in question include various standards established by groups like the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
I’m currently reading a very good book on just this topic, namely The New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy, by Tim Büthe and Walter Mattli. The book examines the wide and growing range of international, private (i.e., non-governmental) standards being set by groups like the IEC, ISO, and IASB. As Büthe and Mattli point out, such standards are a double-edged sword.
On one hand, they facilitate the international flow of goods and services, making it easier for companies to ship products overseas or set up branch offices in foreign countries without learning entirely new, idiosyncratic local standards. And (being established by international groups of experts) they do this without the direct participation of governments that may not have the financial or technical capacity to set such standards. On the other hand private, international standards don’t bring benefits equally to all: not all companies are equally-well equipped to switch from older national standards to newer international ones, and some countries’ internal regulatory regimes make the switch even harder. And regardless, as Büthe and Mattli point out, adopting new standards always brings costs, including things like the costs of training, the cost of redesigning products, and even paying licensing fees for proprietary technologies.
It seems appropriate, at this juncture — while the Occupy Wall Street movement is a) lamenting the nature of government-industry interaction, and b) deciding whether it is or is not part of the anti-globalization movement — to give some serious and well-informed thought to the desirability of regulatory regimes that are both non-governmental and international.
Ethical Investing and Values-Based Investing
Filed under: accountability, certification, experts, film, investing, values |
Comments (9) If you’re an investor, and if you want your money invested in companies that will not just bring you a return on investment, but will also some good in the world, that means you’re interested in what is variously called “responsible investing” or “ethical investing” or “values-based investing.”
I was recently interviewed for a documentary on the topic. Here it is: “Responsible Investing: An Evolving Story.” The 20-minute video was produced by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). OTPP (colloquially known as “Teachers”) is one of the biggest institutional investors in Canada, managing a fund of just over a hundred billion dollars.
One of the main points I tried to make in the segments I’m in is that the key to thinking about values-based investing is to think of it as a mechanism for value-alignment. That is, it’s a way for investors to invest in companies whose values are like their own. It allows pacifists to avoid investing in arms manufacturers, and allows anyone who is stridently anti-tobacco to avoid investing in that industry. It’s not about all of us investing in products or industries that are “more ethical”, overall. Such global judgments are difficult to arrive at, and even harder to find consensus on.
That is, it’s best not to think of values-based investing as “ethical” investing, as if in contrast to all that other, unethical, investing. Indeed, referring to it as “ethical” investing probably makes the same mistake as references to “ethical oil” or “ethical food” does: it confuses the fact that there is ethical reasoning involved in such investing with a much grander claim that your investments are the only (or most) ethical ones.
The Business Ethics Blog 