In The News

Keep America Open to Trade

Carlos M. Gutierrez May 28, 2008
Like other countries, the US confronts rising energy, housing and food prices – but limiting immigration or reducing trade will not alleviate such economic problems. The US secretary of commerce and the governor of California urge that the US continue open policies on trade and immigration. In an opinion essay for the Wall Street Journal, Carlos Gutierrez and Arnold Schwarzenegger, both...

Workers of Our World, Legal or Not

Tim Rutten May 27, 2008
The protests and demands by immigrants in the US, both legal and not, have been subdued in 2008, even though this is a presidential election year. “Immigration is one of those campaign issues in which rhetoric and reality continue to move further apart,” writes Tim Rutten for the Los Angeles Times. The US is home for at least 12 million undocumented immigrants and such labor is essential for some...

Vietnam Is the New China: Globalization's Victors Hunt for the Next Low-Wage Country

Alexander Jung May 16, 2008
Labor has become a scarce commodity in China, and so companies needing workers and seeking high profit margins look to other nations, including Vietnam, Bangladesh or India. A symbiotic system once supplied jobs and eliminated poverty for the Chinese and provided the West with cheap products, report Alexander Jung and Weiland Wagner. But with more stringent labor laws, an economic boom, a...

Is Larry Summers the Canary in the Mine?

Devesh Kapur May 14, 2008
One-time champions of free trade, economic liberalization and globalization – like Larry Summers, former treasury secretary with the Clinton administration – now unveil their doubts. Globalization presents competition, and perhaps potential threat for the US is how a trio of analysts summarizes Summers’ argument in an opinion essay for the Financial Times. His “apparently nationalist argument is...

A Strategy to Promote Healthy Globalization

Lawrence Summers May 14, 2008
US workers and voters are impatient with globalization – and the highly skilled, productive workers in the West do not want any competition to dent their top wages. “[Workers’] effort is complemented by capital, broadly defined to include equipment, managerial expertise, corporate culture, infrastructure and the capacity for innovation,” writes Lawrence Summers, Harvard professor and former...

Debt Collection Done From India Appeals to US Agencies

Heather Timmons May 2, 2008
Making calls to remind borrowers about unpaid debts isn’t easy – and so it’s a natural job for outsourcing. With a sluggish US economy, there’s plenty of calls that need to be made, and debt collection represents growth for outsourcing firms, reports Heather Timmons for the New York Times. India has become a favorite source for debt-collection services because of low costs, automated systems and...

Globalization Pushes More Women Into Informal Economy

Ama Achiaa Amankwah April 28, 2008
Gender inequalities have long left African women outside the formal economy, forced to fend for themselves in informal trade while their brothers and husbands secured employment in the civil sector and state-owned enterprises. Yet the liberalization of African state economies and the elimination of many government-supplied jobs have pushed men out of the formal economy to compete with women....