In The News

A Lesson That Thomas Could Teach

David Leonhardt June 29, 2007
For the past two decades, US firms have relied on an outsourcing strategy: They move manufacturing operations overseas where they can employ workers for low wages, distancing themselves from production and condoning secrecy about factory practices. But this strategy has repercussions: After learning that Thomas the Tank Engine toys, manufactured in China, have lead paint, businesses tried to...

The Double Edge of Globalization

Nayan Chanda June 28, 2007
Activists have long accused global corporations of being bad environmental citizens. But the problems of climate change and deforestation are part of a larger phenomenon, in which globalization is but one factor among many. As Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal, discusses in his new book “Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization,” international...

In a World on the Move, a Tiny Land Strains to Cope

Jason DeParle June 28, 2007
In Cape Verde, the number of people who have migrated approaches the number of people who have stayed behind, and everyone has a close relative in either Europe or North America. So many Cape Verdeans, such as Antonia Delgado, receive money from those abroad. She raises her granddaughter’s son, who rarely sees his mother because she works in Portugal. Despite stricter immigration policies, many...

Expert View: Outsourcing Is Out – It's a Political Cold Potato

Chris Walker June 28, 2007
Companies began outsourcing tasks, including payroll processing, in the 1960s. As the information-technology sector grew, so did the number of outsourced jobs. Today, all types of jobs, from low-level data entry to the transfer of intellectual property, are outsourced from high-wage to low-wage areas. Experts estimate that in India, call centers employ more than a million people, which some...

A New Deal for Globalization

Kenneth F. Scheve June 27, 2007
Globalization – through education, trade and innovation – has delivered immense benefits for the US. But wages have declined, even for workers with college degrees. Only workers with doctorate or professional graduate degrees – less than 4 percent of the work force – experienced earnings growth between 2000 and 2005. Unskilled and low-skilled workers make up the majority of the US labor force....

Global Trade Talks Collapse Over Agricultural Subsidies

Carter Dougherty June 25, 2007
Another attempt to revive the Doha round of negotiations, the goal of which is a global trade agreement for reducing poverty in small developing nations, collapsed once again. The US and Europe resist slashing their own agricultural subsidies as much as developing nations, including India and Brazil, would prefer. Brazil and India refuse to open their markets to goods from the industrialized...

Report Shows Darker Side of Globalization

Brian Love June 23, 2007
Lower costs of transportation, communication and other technology allow businesses to move to the most profitable points on the globe. Such relocations have contributed to rising economies in China, India, Russia and Brazil, with those four nations accounting for almost half of the world’s labor supply. In the meantime, wages as a percentage of gross domestic product have declined in most wealthy...