In The News

Globalisation’s Children Strike Back

James Harding September 11, 2001
Anti-globalization activism may seem like a single opponent to organizations like the WTO and World Bank that bear the brunt of its attacks; but in reality, the movement lacks a general consensus beyond the slogan: “Another world is possible.” This other world is at least partially defined in the list of concerns, grievances, or failures members of the movement find in globalization. Anti-...

An Idea that Gained Currency but Lost Clarity

James Tobin September 11, 2001
James Tobin, the economist from whom the ‘Tobin tax’ takes its name, explains his reasons for a tax on currency speculation and what problems he originally intended the tax to solve. The tax he proposed was meant to be levied on all currency transactions. The cost of paying the tax would reduce de-stabilizing speculation and also give national central banks enough space to control their short-...

Globalization True, and False

Pulapre Balakrishnan August 20, 2001
Any discussion on free trade must include a discussion of free immigration, for it is people that produce the goods that are to be traded. If the producers are not free to move, then trade itself is not free. As the writer Balakrishnan argues, “immigration cannot be ignored in any global compact on economics.” Balakrishnan is, however, aware what free immigration means to developed countries: the...