THE EFFECT OF MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Supply Chain Emissions, Green Technology Transfers, and Corporate Commitments

By Victor Steenbergen and Abhishek Saurav

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) provide both a fundamental risk to and an opportunity for climate change mitigation. The climate ambitions of MNEs will affect the environmental performance of countries around the world. Proactive MNEs can impose sustainability standards or encourage green technology transfers that, in some cases, could affect millions of producers and accelerate the climate transition. However, obstructive MNEs may equally hold back any progress to reduce a country’s emissions via inaction or by actively resisting, obstructing, or lobbying against change.

The report answers four key questions related to the relationship between MNEs and climate change: 1) What effect do MNEs currently have on climate change, both through their own activities and through the emissions of their broader supply chains? 2) How do MNEs shape the potential transfer of green technologies to domestic firms, and how do different types of interactions with MNEs stimulate such technology transfers? 3) How committed are leading MNEs to transitioning their supply chains to net-zero emissions by 2050, and do they have long-, medium-, and short-range strategies to realize this? and 4) What types of policies can influence MNEs’ effects on climate change?

Misallocation Of Firm Financing

New Evidence and Policy Implications for Developing Countries

By Tatiana Didier and Ana Paula Cusolito

Access to finance is critical to ensuring productive investments. Yet a myriad of financial distortions, frictions, and market failures can prevent the efficient allocation of financial resources toward the most productive firms and uses and negatively impact aggregate productivity and economic growth. Drawing from a newly constructed dataset of 2.5 million private firms, this report presents novel evidence about the productivity gains that low- and middle-income countries can obtain by removing financial distortions and fostering efficient and inclusive financial markets.

August 2023. 150 pages.

Stock no. C211939

(ISBN: 978-1-4648-1939-1). US$43.95