In The News

What's Wrong With Globalization?

Erwin Marquit August 30, 2006
Globalization has boosted world productivity, reducing obstacles in selling goods and services. Yet the forces of production are varied and can be confused: One component includes objects, including energy or land, that undergo transformation in the production process; a second is the tools of labor, including plants and electric grids; and the third is labor itself. Globalization and the forces...

Fed Chief Gives Seminar on History of Globalization

Edmund L. Andrews August 29, 2006
Governments must prepare their citizens for the increasing disruptions of new competition caused by the force of globalization. The world will face fewer disruptions if the “benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently shared,” urged Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve at an annual retreat. Increasing numbers of the world population – particularly emerging economic...

100,000 Heads Are Better Than One

Chris Reidy August 25, 2006
The internet widens the market for any business, increasing the pool of buyers and sellers. Operating on that principle, some websites allow major corporations to post anonymous research challenges, inviting free-lance scientists to volunteer solutions. For example, a Canadian engineer earned $25,000 for providing an easier way for one company to move toothpaste ingredients into a tube. The...

China Puts Price on Head of Rare Animals

Jonathan Watts August 24, 2006
The economic law of supply and demand makes no exception for endangered species: Price goes up as the population declines. The Chinese government is selling permits to foreign tourists, giving them the right to hunt yak, wolves and argali in five of the nation’s poorest provinces. Chinese are not eligible for the permits. The government suggests that the expensive hunts will aid conservation...

A Misreading in India

Amelia Gentleman August 24, 2006
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo executives were confident that they could handle allegations, made by the Center for Science and the Environment, that products sold in India contained pesticides. But executives did not anticipate how quickly the news would spread through India, how local politicians would seize the opportunity to denounce the multinational corporations, and how explosive the issue could...

More Than Wal-Mart

Robert Kuttner August 23, 2006
Wal-Mart is a symbol of the struggling worker who faces little hope of advancement, both in the US and abroad. The world’s largest retailer offers low prices by paying millions of workers minimum wage and passing many health-care costs onto government programs for the poor. The US government supports the work ethic. Since 1970, the US government decreased employer regulation, eliminated pension...

A Restriction on Trade and Security

Donald Weadon August 23, 2006
In response to increasing fears about China as an emerging world power, the commercial export-control agency for the US has proposed new restrictions. Since World War II, the US relied on a multilateral system that controlled military commercial technology. Yet the US Bureau of Industry and Security has shifted to a bilateral approach, restricting the “sale, re-export or transfer” of 47...