William J. Congdon and Maya Shankar in Special Issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on Evidence Based Policy Making: “Behavioral economics has come to play an important role in evidence-based policymaking. In September 2015, President Obama signed an executive order directing federal agencies to incorporate insights from behavioral science into federal policies and programs. The order also charged the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) with supporting this directive. In this article, we briefly trace the history of behavioral economics in public policy. We then turn to a discussion of what the SBST was, how it was built, and the lessons we draw from its experience and achievements. We conclude with a discussion of prospects for the future, arguing that even as SBST is currently lying fallow, behavioral economics continues to gain currency and show promise as an essential element of evidence-based policy….(More)”.
Mapping Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Migration With Mobile Phone Data
Martin Echenique and Luis Melgar at CityLab: “It is well known that the U.S. Census Bureau keeps track of state-to-state migration flows. But that’s not the case with Puerto Rico. Most of the publicly known numbers related to the post-Maria diaspora from the island to the continental U.S. were driven by estimates, and neither state nor federal institutions kept track of how many Puerto Ricans have left (or returned) after the storm ravaged the entire territory last September.
But Teralytics, a New York-based tech company with offices in Zurich and Singapore, has developed a map that reflects exactly how, when, and where Puerto Ricans have moved between August 2017 and February 2018. They did it by tracking data that was harvested from a sample of nearly 500,000 smartphones in partnership with one major undisclosed U.S. cell phone carrier….
The usefulness of this kind of geo-referenced data is clear in disaster relief efforts, especially when it comes to developing accurate emergency planning and determining when and where the affected population is moving.
“Generally speaking, people have their phones with them the entire time. This tells you where people are, where they’re going to, coming from, and movement patterns,” said Steven Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University and former chief technologist for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. “It could be very useful for disaster-relief efforts.”…(More)”.
Preprints: The What, The Why, The How.
Center for Open Science: “The use of preprint servers by scholarly communities is definitely on the rise. Many developments in the past year indicate that preprints will be a huge part of the research landscape. Developments with DOIs, changes in funder expectations, and the launch of many new services indicate that preprints will become much more pervasive and reach beyond the communities where they started.
From funding agencies that want to realize impact from their efforts sooner to researchers’ desire to disseminate their research more quickly, the growth of these servers and the number of works being shared, has been substantial. At COS, we already host twenty different organizations’ services via the OSF Preprints platform.
So what’s a preprint and what is it good for? A preprint is a manuscript submitted to a dedicated repository (like OSF Preprints, PeerJ, bioRxiv or arXiv) prior to peer review and formal publication. Some of those repositories may also accept other types of research outputs, like working papers and posters or conference proceedings. Getting a preprint out there has a variety of benefits for authors other stakeholders in the research:
- They increase the visibility of research, and sooner. While traditional papers can languish in the peer review process for months, even years, a preprint is live the minute it is submitted and moderated (if the service moderates). This means your work gets indexed by Google Scholar and Altmetric, and discovered by more relevant readers than ever before.
- You can get feedback on your work and make improvements prior to journal submission. Many authors have publicly commented about the recommendations for improvements they’ve received on their preprint that strengthened their work and even led to finding new collaborators.
- Papers with an accompanying preprint get cited 30% more often than papers without. This research from PeerJsums it up, but that’s a big benefit for scholars looking to get more visibility and impact from their efforts.
- Preprints get a permanent DOI, which makes them part of the freely accessible scientific record forever. This means others can relay on that permanence when citing your work in their research. It also means that your idea, developed by you, has a “stake in the ground” where potential scooping and intellectual theft are concerned.
So, preprints can really help lubricate scientific progress. But there are some things to keep in mind before you post. Usually, you can’t post a preprint of an article that’s already been submitted to a journal for peer review. Policies among journals vary widely, so it’s important to check with the journal you’re interested in sending your paper to BEFORE you submit a preprint that might later be published. A good resource for doing this is JISC’s SHERPA/RoMEO database. It’s also a good idea to understand the licensing choices available. At OSF Preprints, we recommend the CC-BY license suite, but you can check choosealicense.com or https://osf.io/6uupa/ for good overviews on how best to license your submissions….(More)”.
Data Ethics Framework
Introduction by Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to the UK’s Data Ethics Framework: “Making better use of data offers huge benefits, in helping us provide the best possible services to the people we serve.
However, all new opportunities present new challenges. The pace of technology is changing so fast that we need to make sure we are constantly adapting our codes and standards. Those of us in the public sector need to lead the way.
As we set out to develop our National Data Strategy, getting the ethics right, particularly in the delivery of public services, is critical. To do this, it is essential that we agree collective standards and ethical frameworks.
Ethics and innovation are not mutually exclusive. Thinking carefully about how we use our data can help us be better at innovating when we use it.
Our new Data Ethics Framework sets out clear principles for how data should be used in the public sector. It will help us maximise the value of data whilst also setting the highest standards for transparency and accountability when building or buying new data technology.
We have come a long way since we published the first version of the Data Science Ethical Framework. This new version focuses on the need for technology, policy and operational specialists to work together, so we can make the most of expertise from across disciplines.
We want to work with others to develop transparent standards for using new technology in the public sector, promoting innovation in a safe and ethical way.
This framework will build the confidence in public sector data use needed to underpin a strong digital economy. I am looking forward to working with all of you to put it into practice…. (More)”
The Data Ethics Framework principles
1.Start with clear user need and public benefit
2.Be aware of relevant legislation and codes of practice
3.Use data that is proportionate to the user need
4.Understand the limitations of the data
5.Ensure robust practices and work within your skillset
The Slippery Math of Causation
Pradeep Mutalik for Quanta Magazine: “You often hear the admonition “correlation does not imply causation.” But what exactly is causation? Unlike correlation, which has a specific mathematical meaning, causation is a slippery concept that has been debated by philosophers for millennia. It seems to get conflated with our intuitions or preconceived notions about what it means to cause something to happen. One common-sense definition might be to say that causation is what connects one prior process or agent — the cause — with another process or state — the effect. This seems reasonable, except that it is useful only when the cause is a single factor, and the connection is clear. But reality is rarely so simple.
Although we tend to credit or blame things on a single major cause, in nature and in science there are almost always multiple factors that have to be exactly right for an event to take place. For example, we might attribute a forest fire to the carelessly thrown cigarette butt, but what about the grassy tract leading to the forest, the dryness of the vegetation, the direction of the wind and so on? All of these factors had to be exactly right for the fire to start. Even though many tossed cigarette butts don’t start fires, we zero in on human actions as causes, ignoring other possibilities, such as sparks from branches rubbing together or lightning strikes, or acts of omission, such as failing to trim the grassy path short of the forest. And we tend to focus on things that can be manipulated: We overlook the direction of the wind because it is not something we can control. Our scientifically incomplete intuitive model of causality is nevertheless very useful in practice, and helps us execute remedial actions when causes are clearly defined. In fact, artificial intelligence pioneer Judea Pearl has published a new book about why it is necessary to teach cause and effect to intelligent machines.
However, clearly defined causes may not always exist. Complex, interdependent multifactorial causes arise often in nature and therefore in science. Most scientific disciplines focus on different aspects of causality in a simplified manner. Physicists may talk about causal influences being unable to propagate faster than the speed of light, while evolutionary biologists may discuss proximate and ultimate causes as mentioned in our previous puzzle on triangulation and motion sickness. But such simple situations are rare, especially in biology and the so-called “softer” sciences. In the world of genetics, the complex multifactorial nature of causality was highlighted in a recent Quanta article by Veronique Greenwood that described the intertwined effects of genes.
One well-known approach to understanding causality is to separate it into two types: necessary and sufficient….(More)”
The Researcher Passport: Improving Data Access and Confidentiality Protection
Report by Margaret C. Levenstein, Allison R.B. Tyler, and Johanna Davidson Bleckman: “Research and evidence-building benefit from the increased availability of administrative datasets, linkage across datasets, detailed geospatial data, and other confidential data. Systems and policies for provisioning access to confidential data, however, have not kept pace and indeed restrict and unnecessarily encumber leading-edge science.
One series of roadblocks can be smoothed or removed by establishing a common understanding of what constitutes different levels of data sensitivity and risk as well as minimum researcher criteria for data access within these levels. This report presents the results of a recently completed study of 23 data repositories.
It describes the extant landscape of policies, procedures, practices, and norms for restricted data access and identifies the significant challenges faced by researchers interested in accessing and analyzing restricted use datasets.
It identifies commonalities among these repositories to articulate shared community standards that can be the basis of a community-normed researcher passport: a credential that identifies a trusted researcher to multiple repositories and other data custodians.
Three main developments are recommended.
First, language harmonization: establishing a common set of terms and definitions – that will evolve over time through collaboration within the research community – will allow different repositories to understand and integrate shared standards and technologies into their own processes.
Second: develop a researcher passport, a durable and transferable digital identifier issued by a central, community-recognized data steward. This passport will capture researcher attributes that emerged as common elements of user access requirements across repositories, including training, and verification of those attributes (e.g., academic degrees, institutional affiliation, citizenship status, and country of residence).
Third: data custodians issue visas that grant a passport holder access to particular datasets for a particular project for a specific period of time. Like stamps on a passport, these visas provide a history of a researcher’s access to restricted data. This history is integrated into the researcher’s credential, establishing the researcher’s reputation as a trusted data steward….(More)
Skills for a Lifetime
Nate Silver’s commencement address at Kenyon College: “….Power has shifted toward people and companies with a lot of proficiency in data science.
I obviously don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. But it’s by no means entirely a good thing, either. You should still inherently harbor some suspicion of big, powerful institutions and their potentially self-serving and short-sighted motivations. Companies and governments that are capable of using data in powerful ways are also capable of abusing it.
What worries me the most, especially at companies like Facebook and at other Silicon Valley behemoths, is the idea that using data science allows one to remove human judgment from the equation. For instance, in announcing a recent change to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook was not “comfortable” trying to come up with a way to determine which news organizations were most trustworthy; rather, the “most objective” solution was to have readers vote on trustworthiness instead. Maybe this is a good idea and maybe it isn’t — but what bothered me was in the notion that Facebook could avoid responsibility for its algorithm by outsourcing the judgment to its readers.
I also worry about this attitude when I hear people use terms such as “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” (instead of simpler terms like “computer program”). Phrases like “machine learning” appeal to people’s notion of a push-button solution — meaning, push a button, and the computer does all your thinking for you, no human judgment required.
But the reality is that working with data requires lots of judgment. First, it requires critical judgment — and experience — when drawing inferences from data. And second, it requires moral judgment in deciding what your goals are and in establishing boundaries for your work.
Let’s talk about that first type of judgment — critical judgment. The more experience you have in working with different data sets, the more you’ll realize that the correct interpretation of the data is rarely obvious, and that the obvious-seeming interpretation isn’t always correct. Sometimes changing a single assumption or a single line of code can radically change your conclusion. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for instance, there were a series of models that all used almost exactly the same inputs — but they ranged in giving Trump as high as roughly a one-in-three chance of winning the presidency (that was FiveThirtyEight’s model) to as low as one chance in 100, based on fairly subtle aspects of how each algorithm was designed….(More)”.
Policy experimentation: core concepts, political dynamics, governance and impacts
In the last two decades, many areas of the social sciences have embraced an ‘experimentalist turn’. It is well known for instance that experiments are a key ingredient in the emergence of behavioral economics, but they are also increasingly popular in sociology, political science, planning, and in architecture (see McDermott 2002). It seems that the potential advantages of experiments are better appreciated today than they were in the past.
But the turn towards experimentalism is not without its critics. In her passionate plea for more experimentation in political science for instance, McDermott (2002: 42) observes how many political scientists are hesitant: they are more interested in large-scale multiple regression work, lack training in experimentation, do not see how experiments could fit into a broader research strategy, and alternative movements in political science (such as constructivists and postmodernists) consider that experimental work is not able to capture complexities and nuances. Representing some of these criticisms, Howe (2004) suggests that experimentation is being oversold and highlights various complications, especially the trade-offs that exist between internal and external validity, the fact that causal inferences can be generated using many other research methods, and the difficulty of comparing governance interventions to new medications in medicine….(More)”.
The GovLab Selected Readings on Blockchain Technologies and the Governance of Extractives
Curation by Andrew Young, Anders Pedersen, and Stefaan G. Verhulst
Readings developed together with NRGI, within the context of our joint project on Blockchain technologies and the Governance of Extractives. Thanks to Joyce Zhang and Michelle Winowatan for research support.
We need your help! Please share any additional readings on the use of Blockchain Technologies in the Extractives Sector with [email protected].
Introduction
By providing new ways to securely identify individuals and organizations, and record transactions of various types in a distributed manner, blockchain technologies have been heralded as a new tool to address information asymmetries, establish trust and improve governance – particularly around the extraction of oil, gas and other natural resources. At the same time, blockchain technologies are been experimented with to optimize certain parts of the extractives value chain – potentially decreasing transparency and accountability while making governance harder to implement.
Across the expansive and complex extractives sector, blockchain technologies are believed to have particular potential for improving governance in three key areas:
- Beneficial ownership and illicit flows screening: The identity of those who benefit, through ownership, from companies that extract natural resources is often hidden – potentially contributing to tax evasion, challenges to global sanction regimes, corruption and money laundering.
- Land registration, licensing and contracting transparency: To ensure companies extract resources responsibly and comply with rules and fee requirements, effective governance and a process to determine who has the rights to extract natural resources, under what conditions, and who is entitled to the land is essential.
- Commodity trading and supply chain transparency: The commodity trading sector is facing substantive challenges in assessing and verifying the authenticity of for example oil trades. Costly time is spent by commodity traders reviewing documentation of often poor quality. The expectation of the sector is firstly to eliminate time spent verifying the authenticity of traded goods and secondly to reduce the risk premium on trades. Transactions from resources and commodities trades are often opaque and secretive, allowing for governments and companies to conceal how much money they receive from trading, and leading to corruption and evasion of taxation.
In the below we provide a selection of the nascent but growing literature on Blockchain Technologies and Extractives across six categories:
- Blockchain Technologies and Extractives – Promise and Current Potential
- Blockchain Technologies and the Governance of Extractives
- Beneficial Ownership and Illicit Flows
- Land Registration, Licensing and Contracting Transparency
- Commodity Trading and Supply Chain Transparency
- Global Governance and Disclosure Practices
- Industry-Specific Case Studies
Selected Readings
Blockchain Technologies and Extractives – Promise and Current Potential
Adams, Richard, Beth Kewell, Glenn Parry. “Blockchain for Good? Digital Ledger Technology and Sustainable Development Goals.” Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research. October 27, 2017.
- This chapter in the Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research seeks to reflect and explore the different ways Blockchain for Good (B4G) projects can provide social and environmental benefits under the UN’s Sustainable Goals framework
- The authors describe the main categories in which blockchain can achieve social impact: mining/consensus algorithms that reward good behavior, benefits linked to currency use in the form of “colored coins,” innovations in supply chain, innovations in government, enabling the sharing economy, and fostering financial inclusion.
- The chapter concludes that with B4G there is also inevitably “Blockchain for Bad.” There is already critique and failures of DLTs such as the DAO, and more research must be done to identify whether DLTs can provide a more decentralized, egalitarian society, or if they will ultimately be another tool for control and surveillance by organizations and government.
Cullinane, Bernadette, and Randy Wilson. “Transforming the Oil and Gas Industry through Blockchain.” Official Journal of the Australian Institute of Energy News, p 9-10, December 2017.
- In this article, Cullinane and Wilson explore blockchain’s application in the oil and gas industry “presents a particularly compelling opportunity…due to the high transactional values, associated risks and relentless pressure to reduce costs.”
- The authors elaborate four areas where blockchain can benefit play a role in transforming the oil and gas industry:
- Supply chain management
- Smart contracts
- Record management
- Cross-border payments
Da Silva, Filipe M., and Ankita Jaitly. “Blockchain in Natural Resources: Hedging Against Volatile Prices.” Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., 2018.
- The authors of this white paper assess the readiness of natural resources industries for blockchain technology application, identify areas where blockchain can add value, and outline a strategic plan for its adoption.
- In particular, they highlight the potential for blockchain in the oil and gas industry to simplify payments, where for example, gas can be delivered directly to consumer homes using a blockchain smart contracting application.
Halford-Thompson, Guy. “Powered by Blockchain: Reinventing Information Management in the Energy Space.” BTL, May 12, 2017.
- According to Halford-Thompson, “oil and gas companies are exploring blockchain’s promise to revamp inefficient internal processes and achieve significant reductions in operating costs through the automation of record keeping and messaging, the digitization of the supply chain information flow, and the elimination of reconciliation, among many other data management use cases.”
- The data reconciliation process, for one, is complex and can require significant time for completion. Blockchain technology could not only remove the need for some steps in the information reconciliation process, but also eliminate the need for reconciliation altogether in some instances.
Blockchain Technologies and the Governance of Extractives
(See also: Selected Readings of Blockchain Technologies and its Potential to Transform Governance)
Koeppen, Mark, David Shrier, and Morgan Bazilian. “Is Blockchain’s Future in Oil and Gas Transformative Or Transient?“ Deloitte, 2017.
- In this report, the authors propose four areas that blockchain can improve for the oil and gas industry, which are:
- Transparency and compliance: Employment of blockchain is predicted to significantly reduce cost related to compliance, since it securely makes information available to all parties involved in the supply chain.
- Cyber threats and security: The industry faces constant digital security threat and blockchain provides a solution to address this issue.
- Mid-volume trading/third party impacts: They argue that the “boundaries between asset classes will blur as cash, energy products and other commodities, from industrial components to apples could all become digital assets trading interoperably.”
- Smart contract: Since the “sheer size and volume of contracts and transactions to execute capital projects in oil and gas have historically caused significant reconciliation and tracking issues among contractors, sub-contractors, and suppliers,” blockchain-enabled smart contracts could improve the process by executing automatically after all requirements are met, and boosting contract efficiency and protecting each party from volatile pricing.
Mawet, Pierre, and Michael Insogna. “Unlocking the Potential of Blockchain in Oil and Gas Supply Chains.” Accenture Energy Blog, November 21, 2016.
- The authors propose three ways blockchain technology can boost productivity and efficiency in oil and gas industry:
- “Greater process efficiency. Smart contracts, for example, can be held in a blockchain transaction with party compliance confirmed through follow-on transactions, reducing third-party supervision and paper-based contracting, thus helping reduce cost and overhead.”
- “Compliance. Visibility is essential to improve supply chain performance. The immutable record of transactions can aid in product traceability and asset tracking.”
- “Data transfer from IoT sensors. Blockchain could be used to track the unique history of a device, with the distributed ledger recording data transfer from multiple sensors. Data security in devices could be safeguarded by unique blockchain characteristics.”
Som, Indranil. “Blockchain: Radically Changing the Mining Paradigm.” Digitalist, September 27, 2017.
- In this article, Som proposes three ways that the blockchain technology can “support leaner organizations and increased security” in the mining industry: improving cybersecurity, increasing transparency through smart contracts, and providing visibility into the supply chain.
Identity: Beneficial Ownership and Illicit Flows
(See also: Selected Readings on Blockchain Technologies and Identity).
de Jong, Julia, Alexander Meyer, and Jeffrey Owens. “Using blockchain for transparent beneficial ownership registers.“ International Tax Review, June 2017.
- This paper discusses the features of blockchain and distributed ledger technology that can improve collection and distribution of information on beneficial ownership.
- The FATF and OECD Global Forum regimes have identified a number of common problems related to beneficial ownership information across all jurisdictions, including:
- “Insufficient accuracy and accessibility of company identification and ownership information;
- Less rigorous implementation of customer due-diligence (CDD) measures by key gatekeepers such as lawyers, accountants, and trust and company service providers; and
- Obstacles to information sharing such as data protection and privacy laws, which impede competent authorities from receiving timely access to adequate, accurate and up-to-date information on basic legal and beneficial ownership.”
- The authors argue that the transparency, immutability, and security offered by blockchain makes it ideally suited for record-keeping, particularly with regards to the ownership of assets. Thus, blockchain can address many of the shortcomings in the current system as identified by the FATF and the OECD.
- They go on to suggest that a global registry of beneficial ownership using blockchain technology would offer the following benefits:
- Ensuring real-time accuracy and verification of ownership information
- Increasing security and control over sensitive personal and commercial information
- Enhancing audit transparency
- Creating the potential for globally-linked registries
- Reducing corruption and fraud, and increasing trust
- Reducing compliance burden for regulate entities
Herian, Robert. “Trusteeship in a Post-Trust World: Property, Trusts Law and the Blockchain.” The Open University, 2016.
- This working paper discusses the often overlooked topic of trusteeship and trusts law and the implications of blockchain technology in the space.
- “Smart trusts” on the blockchain will distribute trusteeship across a network and, in theory, remove the need for continuous human intervention in trust fund investments thus resolving key issues around accountability and the potential for any breach of trust.
- Smart trusts can also increase efficiency and security of transactions, which could improve the overall performance of the investment strategy, thereby creating higher returns for beneficiaries.
Karsten, Jack and Darrell M. West (2018): “Venezuela’s “petro” undermines other cryptocurrencies – and international sanctions.” Brookings, Friday, March 9 2018,
- This article discusses the Venezuelan government’s cryptocurrency, “petro,” which was launched as a solution to the country’s economic crisis and near-worthless currency, “bolívar”
- Unlike the volatility of other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, one petro’s price is pegged to the price of one barrel of Venezuelan oil – roughly $60
- And rather than decentralizing control like most blockchain applications, the petro is subject to arbitrary discount factor adjustment, fluctuating oil prices, and a corrupt government known for manipulating its currency
- The authors warn the petro will not stabilize the Venezuelan economy since only foreign investors funded the presale, yet (from the White Paper) only Venezuelan citizens can use the cryptocurrency to pay taxes, fees, and other expenses. Rather, they argue, the petro represents an attempt to create foreign capital out of “thin air,” which is not subject to traditional economic sanctions.
Land Registration, Licensing and Contracting Transparency
Michael Graglia and Christopher Mellon. “Blockchain and Property in 2018: At the End of the Beginning.” 2018 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 19-23, 2018.
- This paper claims “blockchain makes sense for real estate” because real estate transactions depend on a number of relationships, processes, and intermediaries that must reconcile all transactions and documents for an action to occur. Blockchain and smart contracts can reduce the time and cost of transactions while ensuring secure and transparent record-keeping systems.
- The ease, efficiency, and security of transactions can also create an “international market for small real estate” in which individuals who cannot afford an entire plot of land can invest small amounts and receive their portion of rental payments automatically through smart contracts.
- The authors describe seven prerequisites that land registries must fulfill before blockchain can be introduced successfully: accurate data, digitized records, an identity solution, multi-sig wallets, a private or hybrid blockchain, connectivity and a tech aware population, and a trained professional community
- To achieve the goal of an efficient and secure property registry, the authors propose an 8-level progressive framework through which registries slowly integrate blockchain due to legal complexity of land administration, resulting inertia of existing processes, and high implementation costs.
- Level 0 – No Integration
- Level 1 – Blockchain Recording
- Level 2 – Smart Workflow
- Level 3 – Smart Escrow
- Level 4 – Blockchain Registry
- Level 5 – Disaggregated Rights
- Level 6 – Fractional Rights
- Level 7 – Peer-to-Peer Transactions
- Level 8 – Interoperability
Thomas, Rod. “Blockchain’s Incompatibility for Use as a Land Registry: Issues of Definition, Feasibility and Risk.“ European Property Law Journal, vol. 6, no. 3, May 2017.
- Thomas argues that blockchain, as it is currently understood and defined, is unsuited for the transfer of real property rights because it fails to address the need for independent verification and control.
- Under a blockchain-based system, coin holders would be in complete control of the recordation of the title interests of their land, and thus, it would be unlikely that they would report competing or contested claims.
- Since land remains in the public domain, the risk of third party possessory title claims are likely to occur; and over time, these risks will only increase exponentially.
- A blockchain-based land title represents interlinking and sequential transactions over many hundreds, if not thousands, of years, so given the misinformation that would compound over time, it would be difficult to trust the current title holder has a correctly recorded title
- The author concludes that supporters of blockchain for land registries frequently overlook a registry’s primary function to provide an independent verification of the provenance of stored data.
Vos, Jacob, Christiaan Lemmen, and Bert Beentjes. “Blockchain-Based Land Registry: Panacea, Illusion or Something In Between?“ 2017 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 20-24, 2017.
- The authors propose that blockchain is best suited for the following steps in land administration:
- The issuance of titles
- The archiving of transactions – specifically in countries that do not have a reliable electronic system of transfer of ownership
- The step in between issuing titles and archiving transactions is the most complex – the registration of the transaction. This step includes complex relationships between the “triple” of land administration: rights (right in rem and/or personal rights), object (spatial unit), and subject (title holder). For the most part, this step is done manually by registrars, and it is questionable whether blockchain technology, in the form of smart contracts, will be able to process these complex transactions.
- The authors conclude that one should not underestimate the complexity of the legal system related to land administration. The standardization of processes may be the threshold to success of blockchain-based land administration. The authors suggest instead of seeking to eliminate one party from the process, technologists should cooperate with legal and geodetic professionals to create a system of checks and balances to successfully implement blockchain for land administration.
- This paper also outlines five blockchain-based land administration projects launched in Ghana, Honduras, Sweden, Georgia, and Cook County, Illinois.
Commodity Trading and Supply Chain Transparency
Ahmed, Shabir. “Leveraging Blockchain to Revolutionise the Mining Industry.” SAP News, February 27, 2018.
- In this article, Ahmed identifies seven key use cases for blockchain in the mining industry:
- Automation of ore acquisition and transfer;
- Automatic registration of mineral rights and IP;
- Visibility of ore inventory at ports;
- Automatic cargo hire process;
- Process and secure large amounts of IoT data;
- Reconciling amount produced and sent for processing;
- Automatically execute procurement and other contracts.
Brooks, Michael. “Blockchain and the Fight Against Illicit Financial Flows.” The Policy Corner, February 19, 2018.
- In this article, Brooks argues that, “Because of the inherent decentralization and immutability of data within blockchains, it offers a unique opportunity to bypass traditional tracking and transparency initiatives that require strong central governance and low levels of corruption. It could, to a significant extent, bypass the persistent issues of authority and corruption by democratizing information around data consensus, rather than official channels and occasional studies based off limited and often manipulated information. Within the framework of a coherent policy initiative that integrates all relevant stakeholders (states, transnational organizations, businesses, NGOs, other monitors and oversight bodies), a international supply chains supported by blockchain would decrease the ease with which resources can be hidden, numbers altered, and trade misinvoiced.”
“Conflict Free Natural Resources.” Global Opportunity Report 2017. Global Opportunity Network, 2017.
- In this entry from the Global Opportunity Report, and specifically toward the end of ensuring conflict-free natural resources, Blockchain is labeled as “well-suited for tracking objects and transactions, making it possible for virtually anything of value to be traced. This opportunity is about creating transparency and product traceability in supply chains.
“Blockchain for Traceability in Minerals and Metals Supply Chains: Opportunities and Challenges.” RCS Global and ICMM, 2017.
- This report is based on insights generated during the Materials Stewardship Round Table on the potential of BCTs for tracking and tracing metals and minerals supply chains, which subsequently informed an RCS Global research initiative on the topic.
- Insight into two key areas is increasingly desired by downstream manufacturing companies from upstream producers of metals and minerals: provenance and production methods
- In particular, the report offers five key potential advantages of using Blockchain for mineral and metal supply chain activities:
- “Builds consensus and trust around responsible production standards between downstream and upstream companies.
- The immutability of and decentralized control over a blockchain system minimizes the risk of fraud.
- Defined datasets can be made accessible in real time to any third party, including downstream buyers, auditors, investors, etc. but at the same time encrypted so as to share a proof of fact rather than confidential information.
- A blockchain system can be easily scaled to include other producers and supply chains beyond those initially involved.
- Cost reduction due to the paperless nature of a blockchain-enabled CoC [Chain of Custody] system, the potential reduction of audits, and reduction in transaction costs.”
Van Bockstael, Steve. “The emergence of conflict-free, ethical, and Fair Trade mineral supply chain certification systems: A brief introduction.” The Extractives Industries and Society, vol. 5, issue 1, January 2018.
- This introduction to a special section considers the emerging field of “‘conflict-free’, ‘fair’ and ‘transparently sourced and traded’ minerals” in global industry supply chains.
- Van Bockstael describes three areas of practice aimed at increasing supply chain transparency:
- “Initiatives that explicitly try to sever the links between mining or minerals trading and armed conflict of the funding thereof.”
- “Initiatives, limited in number yet growing, that are explicitly linked to the internationally recognized ‘Fair Trade’ movement and whose aim it is to source artisanally mined minerals for the Western jewellry industry.”
- “Initiatives that aim to provide consumers or consumer-facing industries with more ethical, transparent and fair supply chains (often using those concepts in fuzzy and interchangeable ways) that are not linked to the established Fair Trade movement” – including, among others, initiatives using Blockchain technology “to create tamper-proof supply chains.”
Global Governance, Standards and Disclosure Practices
Lafarre, Anne and Christoph Van der Elst. “Blockchain Technology for Corporate Governance and Shareholder Activism.” European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) – Law Working Paper No. 390/2018, March 8, 2018.
- This working paper focuses on the potential benefits of leveraging Blockchain during functions involving shareholder and company decision making. Lafarre and Van der Elst argue that “Blockchain technology can lower shareholder voting costs and the organization costs for companies substantially. Moreover, blockchain technology can increase the speed of decision-making, facilitate fast and efficient involvement of shareholders.”
- The authors argue that in the field of corporate governance, Blockchain offers two important elements: “transparency – via the verifiable way of recording transactions – and trust – via the immutability of these transactions.”
- Smart contracting, in particular, is seen as a potential avenue for facilitating the ‘agency relationship’ between board members and the shareholders they represent in corporate decision-making processes.
Myung, San Jun. “Blockchain government – a next for of infrastructure for the twenty-first century.” Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, December 2018.
- This paper argues the idea that Blockchain represents a new form of infrastructure that, given its core consensus mechanism, could replace existing social apparatuses including bureaucracy.
- Indeed, Myung argues that blockchain and bureaucracy share a number of attributes:
- “First, both of them are defined by the rules and execute predetermined rules.
- Second, both of them work as information processing machines for society.
- Third, both of them work as trust machines for society.”
- The piece concludes with five principles for replacing bureaucracy with blockchain for social organization: “1) introducing Blockchain Statute law; 2) transparent disclosure of data and source code; 3) implementing autonomous executing administration; 4) building a governance system based on direct democracy; and 5) making Distributed Autonomous Government (DAG).
Peters, Gareth and Vishnia, Guy (2016): “Blockchain Architectures for Electronic Exchange Reporting Requirements: EMIR, Dodd Frank, MiFID I/II, MiFIR, REMIT, Reg NMS and T2S.” University College London, August 31, 2016.
- This paper offers a solution based on blockchain architectures to the regulations of financial exchanges around the world for trade processing and reporting for execution and clearing. In particular, the authors give a detailed overview of EMIR, Dodd Frank, MiFID I/II, MiFIR, REMIT, Reg NMS and T2S.
- The authors suggest the increasing amount of data from transaction reporting start to be incorporated on a blockchain ledger in order to harness the built-in security and immutability features of the blockchain to support key regulatory features.
- Specifically, the authors suggest 1) a permissioned blockchain controlled by a regulator or a consortium of market participants for the maintenance of identity data from market participants and 2) blockchain frameworks such as Enigma to be used to facilitate required transparency and reporting aspects related to identities when performing pre- and post-trade reporting as well as for auditing.
“Blockchain Technology and Competition Policy – Issues paper by the Secretariat,” OECD, June 8, 2018.
- This OECD issues paper poses two key questions about how blockchain technology might increase the relevance of new disclosures practices:
- “Should competition agencies be given permission to access blockchains? This might enable them to monitor trading prices in real-time, spot suspicious trends, and, when investigating a merger, conduct or market have immediate access to the necessary data without needing to impose burdensome information requests on parties.”
- “Similarly, easy access to the information on a blockchain for a firm’s owners and head offices would potentially improve the effectiveness of its oversight on its own subsidiaries and foreign holdings. Competition agencies may assume such oversight already exists, but by making it easier and cheaper, a blockchain might make it more effective, which might allow for more effective centralised compliance programmes.”
Michael Pisa and Matt Juden. “Blockchain and Economic Development: Hype vs. Reality.” Center for Global Development Policy Paper, 2017.
- In this Center for Global Development Policy Paper, the authors examine blockchain’s potential to address four major development challenges: (1) facilitating faster and cheaper international payments, (2) providing a secure digital infrastructure for verifying identity, (3) securing property rights, and (4) making aid disbursement more secure and transparent.
- The authors conclude that while blockchain may be well suited for certain use cases, the majority of constraints in blockchain-based projects fall outside the scope of technology. Common constraints such as data collection and privacy, governance, and operational resiliency must be addressed before blockchain can be successfully implemented as a solution.
Industry-Specific Case Studies
Chohan, Usman. “Blockchain and the Extractive Industries: Cobalt Case Study,” University of New South Wales, Canberra Discussion Paper Series: Notes on the 21st Century, 2018.
- In this discussion paper, the author studies the pilot use of blockchain in cobalt mining industry in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The project tracked the movement of cobalt from artisanal mines through its installation in devices such as smartphones and electric cars.
- The project records cobalt attributes – weights, dates, times, images, etc. – into the digital ledger to help ensure that cobalt purchases are not contributing to forced child labor or conflict minerals.
Chohan, Usman. “Blockchain and the Extractive Industries #2: Diamonds Case Study,” University of New South Wales, Canberra Discussion Paper Series: Notes on the 21st Century, 2018.
- The second case study from Chohan investigates the application of blockchain technology in the extractive industry by studying Anglo-American (AAL) diamond DeBeer’s unit and Everledger’s blockchain projects.
- In this study, the author finds that AAL uses blockchain to track gems (carat, color, certificate numbers), starting from extraction and onwards, including when the gems change hands in trade transaction.
- Like the cobalt pilot, the AAL initiative aims to help avoid supporting conflicts and forced labor, and to improve trading accountability and transparency more generally.
EU ministers endorse Commission’s plans for research cloud
European Commission: “The European Open Science Cloud, which will support EU science in its global leading by creating a trusted environment for hosting and processing research data, is one important step closer to becoming a reality. Meeting in Brussels today, EU research ministers endorsed the roadmap for its creation. The Conclusions of the Competitiveness Council, proposed by the current Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU, are the result of two years of intense negotiations….
According to Commissioner Moedas, much remains to be done to make the EOSC a reality by 2020, but several important aspects stand out:
- the Cloud should be a wide, pan-European federation of existing and emerging excellent infrastructures, which respects the governance and funding mechanisms of its components;
- membership in this federation would be voluntary; and
- the governance structure would include member state ministries, stakeholders and scientists.
…In another important step for Open Science, the Commission published today the final recommendations of the Open Science Policy Platform. Established in 2016, the platform comprises important stakeholders who advise the Commission on how to further develop and practically implement Open Science policy in order to improve radically the quality and impact of European science….(More)”.