In The News

India Back In Global Chain

Nayan Chanda February 20, 2008
The Tata-Boeing deal to supply a critical part used in the next-generation Boeing-787 Dreamliner shows that India has a chance to become a key member of the global manufacturing network, once again. Given India's long history of participation in the global world, this comes as no surprise. As Nayan Chanda points out, if Tata can meet the challenge of the production, its reputation will...

Snap-On Parts Didn’t Click Together for Boeing Jet

Jeff Bailey January 17, 2008
Manufacturing electronic products by assembling specialized parts from multiple suppliers has increased productivity and reduced costs in recent years. But the assembly method that relies on outsourcing for parts can be complicated to reverse. Behind schedule and hoping to speed its process, Boeing asked suppliers to send unassembled sections. “Instead, Boeing has ended up with a pile of parts...

Europe Takes Africa’s Fish, and Boatloads of Migrants Follow

Sharon LaFraniere January 15, 2008
Huge industrial trawlers, most from Europe, push through waters off the African coast, efficiently scraping sea beds clean of fish. Such nonselective industrial fishing has devastated fish populations and habitat, destroying a livelihood and encouraging more African fishermen to use their boats to assist fellow Africans in fleeing their homelands for work in Europe. Governments throughout Africa...

Stop the World (and Avoid Reality)

Alan S. Blinder January 14, 2008
The US was long the most open and competitive economy in the world. But candidates for US president, both Democrats and Republicans, respond to voters’ desire for a time out from international engagement, a mood labeled “Stop the World Syndrome,” by economist Alan Blinder in an opinion essay for the New York Times. The attitude stems from frustration over the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as...

The Globalization Backlash: Is America Slouching Towards Protectionism?

Gabor Steingart January 11, 2008
During their lifetimes, American adults have watched manufacturing jobs move from northern states to the south and then overseas, as auto, textile and now computer manufacturers chase after workers willing to work for low wages. Toshiba shifted a plant from Tennessee to Mexico, where workers assemble computers with parts from China for $8 per day. “Americans wouldn't have such a hard time...

Can the Midwest Regain Its Economic Clout?

Richard C. Longworth January 9, 2008
Achieving economic stability requires a strategy that does not neglect global markets or trends. In the US, the Midwest region has been devastated by companies shifting manufacturing operations first to southern states, paralyzing debt among farmers, followed by globalization with its shift of factories and jobs to low-wage countries. “Of course, an economic revolution as disruptive as...

The Ink Fades on a Profession as India Modernizes

Anand Giridharadas January 7, 2008
As the conduit connecting service providers and consumers grows transparent, middlemen lose jobs. Illiteracy once guaranteed business for letter writers, but a growing economy that provides the resources for education, and affordable cell phone services has left letter writers jobless. This development appears to harm middlemen, but the jobs that technological advances generate more than...