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The Lost Cosmonaut is an interactive narrative based on digitally enhanced paper. This technology uses an electronic pen to mediate between paper and computer. Thus any actions of the pen on the paper can be captured and manipulated by a computer as well as we can map digitally controlled events onto paper. The story in this narrative environment reveals itself partially through written text and images on the paper surface just as any other printed story. However, additional information in form of digitally controlled outputs such as sound, light and projections can be accessed through interaction with pen and paper. Furthermore the audience is not only supposed to read and otherwise perceive information, we also want them to actively produce content for this environment by writing onto the paper. By doing so they also add content to the database containing the digital output at the same time. Hence we produce a complex multimedia environment that works on three levels: On paper, in a digitally controlled visual and acoustic environment and in the combination of both worlds. Last but not least this environment is an open system, which grows as a collaborative effort over time as each user adds his own entries to paper and database. We argue that using paper as an integrated part of a digital environment is a best-of-both-world approach that opens up new possibilities for producing and perceiving narrative.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show how special economic zones (SEZs) can be applied to refugee camps. Zones are powerful tools for investors to act like institutional entrepreneurs, who promote institutional reform by pursuing exemptions from government constraints and taxes or by advocating for reform. Refugee SEZs (R-SEZs) would similarly allow for institutional entrepreneurs to promote broader immigration reform. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply a political economy framework to R-SEZs that explores the factors that make them feasible. A mathematical model is applied to explicitly define the conditions under which the zones could succeed in benefiting refugees, investors and the host economy alike. Findings Under certain conditions, appropriate tax rates can be applied to R-SEZs that make them feasible. Feasibility is determined by being beneficial for the host country while also attracting investors. The zones are feasible if they attract enough foreign investors as opposed to domestic investors. Other factors contributing to zone success are higher wages outside the zone, lower wages inside it, higher cost to the government of non-employed refugees, lower relocation cost for businesses and a higher tax rate outside the zone. Practical implications This policy would aim to provide job opportunities to refugees, profit opportunities to investors and lower net costs for the host government. R-SEZs should be considered by policy makers in countries hosting refugee camps. Just like the old model of SEZs, they can benefit workers while also enhancing the government’s budget. Social implications R-SEZs have the potential to alleviate the refugee crisis the world is facing, which is arguably one of the largest social challenges of our time. Originality/value This paper is the first to outline the political economy conditions for SEZs applied to refugee camps.

This report presents the results of a surveyed that queried members of the Americas Business Dialogue active as foreign investors in Latin America and the Caribbean on the importance they attach to a key set of investment facilitation measures. The objective of the report was to inform negotiators at the WTO working on an investment facilitation for development agreement. The results of the investor survey are put into perspective by highlighting consistencies and gaps in relation to the current state of the WTO Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) negotiations and the actual level of adoption of investment facilitation measures at the national level. The survey yielded important insights that may contribute to the ongoing negotiations, as well as to other negotiations of international investment agreements that address issues of investment facilitation. It should also be of interest to investment promotion agencies (IPAs and other institutions whose mandate includes the facilitation of foreign direct investment. *The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent

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