The design and implementation of the French energy efficiency certificate provides an opportunity to test the hypothesis of the performativity of the economic theory associated with the cap-and-trade market-based instrument. The empirical study of its design and implementation, through interviews and regulatory analysis, reveals a progressive dynamic of decoupling from its initial principles, in particular the equivalence between the quantity of energy saved and the allocation of certificates. Recent adaptations of the instrument attempt to integrate an alternative definition of efficiency based on cost estimation and subsidy allocation. By focusing on calculation practices, this chapter contributes to the understanding of performative struggles and theory-practice decoupling associated with market-based instruments. The chapter identifies four conditions for theory-practice decoupling: competing theories of efficiency, attachment to the instrument, a new principle of action, and weak checks on conformity to theory.

After decades of exponential growth, China has transformed from a stagnant, impoverished autarky to the world’s second-largest economy highly integrated into global supply chains, and numerous Chinese firms have embarked on overseas business expansion on an unprecedented scale. Against that backdrop, many Chinese investors have ventured into the highly competitive, strategically important US market. Though the recent geopolitical confrontation between the two countries has hampered the investment flow, many large Chinese investors have been hesitant to withdraw from the US market. How do Chinese investors negotiate the omnipresent and consequential legal risks and opportunities in the United States? This question, which holds great practical, policy, and theoretical importance, has received scant scholarly attention. This chapter lays out the road map of the book that attempts to provide the answers.

The Introduction opens the book by presenting the key issues at stake and explaining the structure of the book. The purpose of this book is to advance the understanding on the macroeconomic fundamentals of decarbonisation. It identifies the major economic transformations and the roadblocks requiring policy intervention. It develops a macroeconomic policy agenda for decarbonisation that would achieve the climate goals of the international community.

The Trump administration’s four years in power were tumultuous and confrontational for US-China trade relations, and have put the Biden administration in a difficult position: It will either have to pick a new direction, or maintain the legacy it was left. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai has begun to lay out her vision for a US trade policy as it relates to China, but so far, it has been more words than actions. It appears that Tai and the administration have decided to stick with Trump’s Phase One agreement as the framework of its China trade policy rather than break from it in a significant way and to publicly put the onus on China to change its trade practices and see how China reacts. The practical result is that the status quo could stay in place for a while. However, the Biden administration may see this as the short- and long-term approach that works best in terms of domestic politics. As a result, although the administration’s statements could suggest tentative first steps on China trade issues, the relationship may end up standing still for a while.

The United States and China are the primary nodes of the multinodal world order. Together they are the middle third of the global economy, with the world’s biggest military budgets. Their parity makes rivalry inevitable because they are one another’s greatest counterpart. But their parity is asymmetric. China’s power relies on its demographic scale and on its Pacific Asian integration, while the US remains the center of the familiar global system that it created and it is the avatar of the developed world. While a Cold War is unlikely, the dangers posed by global rivalry are profound, ranging from nuclear war to failure to cooperate on global problems. The primary nodes also face asymmetric challenges. The US faces the challenge of adjusting to a central but not hegemonic global role. China faces the challenge of domestic tolerance and a mutually beneficial integration of Greater China and, more generally, of Pacific Asia. Beyond the primary nodes, regional reduction of uncertainties can contribute to the stabilization of world order. Cooperation founded on mutual respect is the prerequisite of successful global governance in a post-hegemonic world.

We need an alternative economic system founded on the physical constraints of the living Earth rather than on economic abstractions. To confront the neo-liberal paradigm at its core, we must build a society in which individual sufficiency coexists with public luxury, rather than one based on the paradigm of infinite growth.

This chapter lays out the physics of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). We start by describing the discovery of the CMB, the blackbody property of the radiation, and its basic properties like mean temperature and dipole. We then discuss the physics of the epoch of recombination when the CMB was generated, and derive key properties of the CMB anisotropy starting from basic principles. We continue to mathematically describe the CMB anisotropy, and outline ways in which it is measured from CMB maps and compared to theory and inflationary predictions. Along the way, we emphasize the statistical properties of the angular power spectrum of the CMB, and how they are used to confront measurements and theory. We end by discussing cutting-edge topics in CMB research, such as CMB polarization, Sunyaev--Zeldovich effect, and primordial non-Gaussianity.

Neutrinos have an important role in cosmology, and here we review them in some detail. We review the fascinating history of how neutrinos were first proposed then detected. We then mathematically describe neutrino oscillations. We describe decoupling of neutrinos from the thermal bath, point out the likely existence of the cosmic neutrino background, and discuss prospects for detecting it directly.

The chapter examines the onset of great-power competition between the rising power, China and the dominant power, the United States. It first discusses how Xi Jinping consolidated central control of foreign policy, the economy, and the military. The next section sketches out the main ideas and initiatives in Xi’s major-power diplomacy. The following section discusses how the long standing US engagement policy came to an abrupt end, ushering in a new phase of US-China peer competition. A further section teases out the key beliefs held by the Chinese leadership and policy elites on the emerging great-power struggle. The conclusion highlights how China mobilized and adjusted its diplomacy amid the Sino-US rivalry to secure its long-term strategic opportunity.

>Monetary policy is no longer the decisions to determine money, but just to decide on the short-term interest rates. Notwithstanding this, old principles consider these decisions as being equivalent, based upon the negative correlation between the bank reserve and the interest rate in the money market. Moreover, the BoK staff had a firm belief that the open market operation in the money market was the most desirable policy tool. In practice, however, the interest rate is neither determined by the interplay of demand and supply in the money market, nor is the open market operation an indispensable instrument, given the increasing role of the standby facility. This chapter examines the determination of the short-term interest rate under the 'corridor' system

Chapter 14 develops methods for reliability-based design optimization (RBDO). Three classes of RBDO problems are considered: minimizing the cost of design subject to reliability constraints, maximizing the reliability subject to a cost constraint, and minimizing the cost of design plus the expected cost of failure subject to reliability and other constraints. The solution of these problems requires the coupling of reliability methods with optimization algorithms. Among many solution methods available in the literature, the main focus in this chapter is on a decoupling approach using FORM, which under certain conditions has proven convergence properties. The approach requires the solution of a sequence of decoupled reliability and optimization problems that are shown to gradually approach a near-optimal solution. Both structural component and system problems are considered. An alternative approach employs sampling to compute the failure probability with the number of samples increasing as the optimal solution point is approached. Also described are approaches that make use of surrogate models constructed in the augmented space of random variables and design parameters. Finally, the concept of buffered failure probability is introduced as a measure closely related to the failure probability, which provides a convenient alternative in solving the optimization subproblem.

Will China catch up to America, and if so, when? Will the superpower conflict with the United States derail or at least significantly slow down China’s rise in a post–COVID-19 world? What does China’s further rise mean for the rest of the world? These are the questions addressed in the final chapter. It first assesses China’s potential growth rate over the next thirty years under the assumption that geopolitical challenges will not have a significant effect on China’s long-term growth trend. The chapter then discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitics on China’s growth prospects. The chapter projects that China’s economy will most likely surpass that of the United States by 2030 and possibly double that of the United States in 2050. It is argued that geopolitics will not have significant impact on China’s economic prospects, and that China’s rise can benefit the rest of the world particularly through its increasing contribution to global technological progress. Because China’s rise appears irreversible, the chapter concludes that we are entering a truly multipolar world, and peaceful coexistence is no longer an option but a necessity.

The COVID-19 pandemic is broadly impacting global supply chains with enterprises being prevented from producing and shipping raw inputs, semi-finished articles and end products, and governments adopting and maintain exporting restrictions on ventilators, masks, gloves, personal protective equipment and relevant inputs. The pandemic amplifies and accelerates the decoupling of US–China economic relations, reflecting US President Trump’s maxim 'economic security is national security' and delivered by a US–China trade war with numerous trade measures, including sanctions against Huawei.The attachment to economic security reflects a reversal of economic globalisation which used to posit economic interdependence as a safeguard for national security, but there is now a theory that overdependence is a threat to national security. In this context, there is a need for fresh look at the law and politics on export restrictions and sombre thought on the restructure of the global supply chain. Three key elements will be of critical importance in the post-COVID-19 world: ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’, economic security and the decoupling of the US–China economy.