In The News

Hathaway Closes Maine Factory, Last Major U.S. Shirt Plant

The Associated Press October 20, 2002
America’s industrial revolution was launched in the early 19th century by men like Francis Cabot Lowell, who set up textile mills with technology copied from Great Britain. Some textile mills still operate in the South, but the closure of the US’s last major shirt maker marks the end of an era in a globalizing world where production is perpetually in search of low-cost labor and rent....

Asian Fast-Food Outlets Find Brisk Market

October 18, 2002
While some anti-globalization activists deplore the spread of American culture via such food outlets as McDonald’s and KFC, there is evidence that the exchange of food culture is not simply uni-directional. Filipino, Japanese, and Hong Kong fast food chains are spreading into US markets, bringing ‘comfort food’ tastes to immigrants and exposing American palates to Asian quick-stop foods. –...

Immigration Reform and National Security

Tamar Jacoby September 16, 2002
Despite Mexican President Vicente Fox’s appeal to the U.S. Congress last year for more favorable immigration policies, the issue of immigration reform has been swept under the proverbial rug. The plan proposed to increase the number of visas for Mexican workers and to legalize the status of many previously undocumented workers in the U.S. A year after the plan first reached Washington, issues...

Bid to Break Deadlock Over GM Food

John Mason August 28, 2002
The World Bank will launch an international biotechnology initiative aimed at opening up policy possibilities for the use of genetically modified (GM) foods. The global initiative sits against the backdrop of environmental, social, and economic concerns regarding the role of GMs. Economically, the biotechnology proposition has found European consumer opposition, creating rifts in trade with the U...

Prolonged Economic Slowdown Prompts IT firms to Change Track

Jennifer Lien August 26, 2002
For the first time, Hewlett-Packard has used a company other than Intel to supply them with microprocessors for one of their business PC’s. In these times of “economic belt-tightening,” IT companies have begun to branch out in an effort to corner other markets. Dell recently released a “white-box” no-name PC onto the market to be sold through small retailers at especially low prices....

Baffled by Brazil

Ricardo Hausmann August 14, 2002
Emerging markets such as Brazil and Uruguay need stability in order to sustain growth. The goal behind IMF and US foreign aid should thus be to provide stability. However, Paul O’Neill (US Treasury Secretary), the IMF, and US foreign aid serve more to hurt than to help economic stability, argues Harvard Government Professor Ricardo Hausmann. In order to protect emerging markets when financial...

Brazil Relief Rests on Hopefuls' IMF Stances

Raymond Colitt August 14, 2002
After the 1998 Russian financial crisis and Argentina's economic collapse, the International Monetary Fund's latest target for support is Brazil’s struggling economy, lending that country 30 billion US dollars last week. This seemed like good news for Brazil which hoped that the IMF loan would attract international investment. However, despite the IMF's support, international...