Leveraging emerging markets for global good.

Seminars, workshops, and conferences for researchers from around the world. Additional opportunities for Northeastern faculty to engage with CEM.

Academic programs, learning opportunities, and grants for projects and research in emerging markets, open to undergraduate and graduate students at Northeastern.

Cutting-edge insights and recommendations on emerging market topics for managers, policymakers, and other members of the business community.

Devesh Kapur is the Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Arvind Subramanian is Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. This note is based on their talk at CEM's Vivek and Vandana Sharma India Lecture, moderated by CEM Director Ravi Ramamurti. The talk drew on findings from their book, A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey. Their core message: India's decision to democratize before it developed was not an accident. It was a deliberate choice that held a diverse and fractured country together but made sustained economic development significantly harder.

Recent research by Ferretti, Manivannan, and Marques examines why voluntary sustainability standard organizations (VSSOs) spread unevenly across low- and middle-income economies. Drawing on a study of 131 agrifood VSSOs across 152 countries, the paper shows that these standards are more most commonly found not in institutional “voids” but in countries with stronger local trade, financial, and social protection institutions. The findings suggest that VSSOs are most active where domestic institutions help firms access export facilitation, technical support, and credit for standards adoption and upgrading within global value chains. Surprisingly the strength of environmental stewardship institutions is not significantly associated with VSSO diffusion. For policymakers, the implication is clear: attracting VSSOs and supporting sustainable upgrading may depend less on filling institutional voids alone and more on strengthening the local support system that enable companies to comply with and benefit from sustainability standards.

This brief examines how multinational companies (MNCs) can play an important role in climate action in emerging markets, overcoming the political roadblocks and country-specific barriers – such as inconsistent regulations or lack of technology – that have stalled global coordination. Drawing on recent research by Allen, Barbalau, Chavez and Zeni, it identifies four key features that position MNCs uniquely to address the climate challenge: their size and reach, resources and technology, collaborative networks, and superior access to capital. Together, these features enable MNCs to act as conduits for transferring the resources necessary to finance the climate transition. Although MNCs have been major contributors of global emissions, their extensive and efficient internal markets for governance, financing, and technology allow them to diffuse best practices and clean technologies more efficiently than piecemeal government regulation. By designing the right public and private incentive mechanisms, decision-makers can realign MNC objectives and harness their potential to decarbonize the economy.