In The News

"The UK failed the globalization challenge"

Liam Halligan September 12, 2005
Heeding the private sector's enthusiasm for India and China, Western leaders are now recognizing the growing commercial importance of the Asian giants. Yet political interests do not always align conveniently with economic ones. Earlier this year, the EU, under the leadership of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, placed limits on Chinese textile imports, blocking 80 million euros worth of...

Globalization: A View From Africa

September 8, 2005
The effects of globalization, both positive and negative, vary across a wide spectrum, from society to culture to religion to economics. According to this commentary in Botswana's Mmegi newspaper, the process of globalization is fueled by the interaction of transnational corporations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. The issue of trade...

A Chasm Grows in "Flat" World

Mark Trumbull September 7, 2005
"In theory," writes Mark Trumbull in The Christian Science Monitor, "as economies open up to commerce, there should be greater equality of opportunities – and incomes." Unfortunately, as Trumbull reports, globalization is not the ultimate cure for poverty, as others may have hoped. While the economies of countries like China and India have certainly blossomed with increased...

Edwardian Summer

Larry Elliott August 18, 2005
Can the world learn from its past follies? The Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott examines this question, as he draws parallels between the "first" age of globalization – just prior to World War I – and the current second phase. There are several similarities between the two eras: belief in unrestricted capital flows and free trade, profound income inequality, and large-scale...

How France Can Win From Offshoring

Tony Blanco August 15, 2005
The debate over benefits of outsourcing centers to companies and to a country’s economy versus its cost to displaced workers at home, has heated up in France. As France struggles to compete in the global economy, the authors suggest that it should strive to take full advantage of outsourcing. They recommend several tactics that could derive similar benefits from outsourcing, while minimizing...

Globalization Is an Anomaly and Its Time is Running Out

James Howard Kunstler August 4, 2005
While American intellectuals continue to portray globalization as a new permanent fixture of the world, writes James Howard Kunstler, the global trade fair is nearing its end. Kunstler opines that the "cheerleaders of globalization" fail to recognize that today's global economic relations are based on relative world peace and reliable supplies of cheap energy. He points to...

A New Vocabulary for Trade

Jagdish Bhagwati August 4, 2005
Globalization is a complex phenomenon, which New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has famously explained with the metaphor of a "flat world." According to fellow globalization expert Jagdish Bhagwati, however, "The notion of a flat world is as wrong metaphorically now as it was when Copernicus showed it to be literally wrong." Bhagwati charges that Friedman's word...