In The News

Shaking Spain Out of Its Siesta

John Ward Anderson April 26, 2006
Globalization and intense competition across borders has made it more challenging for countries to maintain some cultural traditions. In January 2006, the Spanish government enacted regulations requiring that all federal agencies enforce a strict 45-minute lunch break – allowing workers to head home at 6 pm rather than 8 pm. By abolishing the siesta, a 3-hour lunch break once traditional in Spain...

New Globalization Battle Threatens Asia

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller April 26, 2006
The world today must confront a new economic policy conundrum: national governments doubting the benefits of cross-border mergers and acquisitions on the one hand, and the forces of economic globalization driving such partnerships on the other. The battle, already waged in Europe and the US, has now migrated to Asia. As global industry restructures, three major factors frame the conflict over...

The Silent Globalization of Remittances

Richard Reeves April 26, 2006
When immigrants work in wealth countries like the US, they often send money back home to families. Such remittance income far exceeds foreign aid or direct foreign investment in Central America and the Caribbean region. The World Bank estimates that such foreign exchange is on the rise, with more than $223 billion transferred from rich countries to poor in 2005. The distribution is direct and...

The World: Set Ways; Vive La Dolce Vita

Roger Cohen April 25, 2006
With the accelerating convergence of ideas and commodities, the world has more jobs available. Yet, many Europeans prefer job security to risky endeavors and resist the process of globalization. Pundits expected recent elections to decide the direction for Europe, but voters are polarized. Close results in the Italian election could undermine the credibility of Italy’s next political leadership,...

Microsoft's Gates Sees Vietnam Outsourcing Potential

Jason Folkmanis April 25, 2006
Vietnam’s economic growth, combined with a young population and high literacy rate, lures potential investors including the richest man in the world, Bill Gates. However, intellectual-property piracy also tends to run rampant in Vietnam and other nations with young impoverished populations. During a visit to the Communist country that eagerly seeks WTO membership, Gates suggested that Vietnam...

Learning Globalization From Football

Branko Milanovic April 21, 2006
Football is not only popular, but probably the world's most globalized profession. The most talented Brazilian, Cameroonian and Japanese football players move from country to country more so than doctors, computer scientists, blue-collar workers or bank tellers. On the club circuit, rules have evolved so that international character defines top teams, and statistics show that success...

Political Clout in the Age of Outsourcing

David Leonhardt April 21, 2006
Americans were once nonchalant about outsourcing – until reports emerged about hospitals sending radiology tests to doctors in India, who provided low-cost accurate readings. Commentators and politicians took notice and debated what such outsourcing would mean for health care. Economists from MIT decided to take a closer look and found a single company in India with three radiologists doing such...