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661. Thresholds in the Process of International Financial Integration

Author:
Eswar Prasad, M. Ayhan Kose, and Ashley D. Taylor
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The financial crisis has re-ignited the fierce debate about the merits of financial globalization and its implications for growth, especially for developing countries. The empirical literature has not been able to conclusively establish the presumed growth benefits of financial integration. Indeed, a new literature proposes that the indirect benefits of financial integration may be more important than the traditional financing channel emphasized in previous analyses. A major complication, however, is that there seem to be certain “threshold” levels of financial and institutional development that an economy needs to attain before it can derive the indirect benefits and reduce the risks of financial openness. In this paper, we develop a unified empirical framework for characterizing such threshold conditions. We find that there are clearly identifiable thresholds in variables such as financial depth and institutional quality—the cost-benefit trade- off from financial openness improves significantly once these threshold conditions are satisfied. We also find that the thresholds are lower for foreign direct investment and portfolio equity liabilities compared to those for debt liabilities.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance

662. The G20 Meetings: No Common Framework, No Consensus

Author:
Michael Pettis
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Participants in the recently completed G20 meeting in London agreed on a number of measures, some substantial and some merely symbolic, but they sidestepped the real issues dividing the major economic powers and, in so doing, failed to address the root causes of the global trade and investment imbalances. This was almost inevitable. China, Europe, and the United States have incompatible conceptual frameworks for understanding the causes of the global financial crisis; furthermore, their conflicting domestic political constraints make agreement on solutions hard to reach. Europeans believe that the root cause of the crisis was excessively deregulated financial systems, and they are skeptical about U.S. and Chinese calls for fiscal expansion, worrying that excessive spending would prolong the imbalances and make the ultimate adjustment more difficult. China also believes that the roots of the crisis lie within the structure of the global financial system, although Beijing insists that it was mainly the reserve status of the U.S. dollar that permitted imbalances to develop to unsustainable levels. China is particularly vulnerable to trade protection and seeks to maintain open markets for its continued export of domestic overcapacity. Like the United States, it is pushing for more aggressive, globally coordinated fiscal expansion. However, because of rigidities in its financial system and development model, its fiscal response to the crisis may exacerbate the difficult global adjustment and may, ironically, increase the chances of trade friction. In a time of contracting demand, the United States controls two-thirds of the most valuable resource in the world: net demand. Consequently, it is U.S. policies that will determine the pace and direction of the global recovery, along with the institutional framework that will govern trade and investment relationships for decades to come. The crisis puts the United States more firmly at the center of the emerging world order than ever. So far, the United States has not understood the need to consider the global outcomes of its recovery policies. Until the major powers can reach consensus about the roots of the imbalance and cooperate on policies to promote recovery, it is likely that the world economy will get worse before it gets better. The United States will drive the recovery process, but in order to do so effectively it will need to recognize its position of strength and negotiate the appropriate agreements with other major powers, especially China, on the pace and nature of the adjustment.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, and London

663. Environmental Justice in World Politics

Author:
Özgüç Orhan
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
All environmental problems in one way or another are involved in the question of justice. The concept of “environmental justice” has been in circulation for some time underlining the justice dimension of environmental issues. Given the globalization of environmental problems since 1970s, the environmental justice discourse has been increasingly used to frame various international or global environmental issues like toxic waste trade, ozone depletion, biodiversity protection, and global warming. There is now quite a number of phrases that can help us to think environmental justice outside state borders: “global environmental justice,” “transnational environmental justice,” “international environmental justice,” and “international environmental equity.” Environmental scholars using these terms often fail to draw meaningful distinctions among them. I argue that this multiplicity of phrases signifies more than an inadvertent inflation of terminology. The terminological diversity we encounter in IR literature actually corresponds to different modes of environmental justice in world politics.
Topic:
Climate Change and Globalization

664. The Internationalization of Chinese and Indian Firms: Trends, Motivations and Policy Implications

Author:
Sandeep Kapur and Suma Athreye
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The last two decades have seen a significant rise in the internationalization of firms from developing economies. In addition to their growing participation in international trade, a number of leading emerging economies are contributing to growing outflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. According to the 2008 World Investment Report, outward flows of FDI from developing countries rose from about US$6 billion between 1989 and 1991 to US$225 billion in 2007. As a percentage of total global outflows, the share of developing countries grew from 2.7% to nearly 13.0% during this period.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, Markets, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, China, and India

665. Identity in the Age of Cloud Computing: The next-generation Internet's impact on business, governance and social interaction

Author:
J.D. Lasica
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Identity—the very essence of who we are and how we interact with others— is in the middle of a period of extraordinary tumult. The Internet and a host of new communications technologies have transformed the concept of identity and redefined our relationships to businesses, governments and constantly churning networks of friends and peers.
Topic:
Security, Globalization, Intelligence, and Science and Technology

666. Organizing for a Complex World: The Way Ahead

Author:
David J. Berteau, Guy Ben-Ari, and Matthew Zlatnik
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
Complex defense and network-centric systems have proven to be difficult to develop on time and on budget, a consequence of the complexity inherent in both the systems and the acquisition environment. Complexity in turn results from non-linear, unpredictable interaction of elements combined in new ways, in order to try to create unique capabilities. Complex development programs pose governance and management challenges for a range of systems-integration models, and it is difficult to know in advance the program-management model most suitable for a given program. This paper proposes ways to measure or assess success in managing complex programs. It also addresses ways that the challenge of picking the proper development model can be partially bypassed, by seeking to cultivate flexibility and resiliency (F) within the organization. Through the ability to understand and adapt to changes in the internal and external environments, a program-management organization can thrive in a development environment in which unanticipated events will certainly occur.
Topic:
Security, Development, Globalization, and International Cooperation

667. Economic Writing on the Pressing Problems of the Day: The Roles of Moral Intuition and Methodological Confusion

Author:
Julie A. Nelson
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. Potential steps towards a more responsible, "strongly objective," and policy-useful economics are discussed.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Globalization, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

668. Wal-Mart: The Panopticon of Time

Author:
Max Haiven and Scott Stoneman
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
At a moment when the future of global capitalism seems altogether uncertain, we want to take another look at Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation. Despite its importance to the American and global economy, surprisingly little critical scholarship has emerged on the “Beast from Bentonville.” In this working-paper we suggest that we can understand Wal-Mart as both a unique instance as well as a telling example of tendencies within the process of planetary social transformation that has come to be known as globalization. In particular, Wal-Mart strives to become what we will call a “panopticon of time”: a particularly acute and emblematic crystallization of social, economic and technological forces which express a new constellation of power under globalizing capitalism. Wal- Mart represents among the most advanced consolidations of corporate, financial, technological and managerial technologies which employees afford it unprecedented control over consumers, employees, sub-contractors, communities and even nations, as well as unprecedented profit. We argue its power stems in part from its ability to hinge various modes of power: the local and the global, spectacle and surveillance, the private and the public, the everyday and the exceptional. And it is driven as much by the need to intervene in the production of subjects and the shaping of networks as the need to generate profit; indeed, these two imperatives have become inseparable. Wal-Mart is a symptom and an agent of the depotentiation of time under corporate globalization, the confinement or incarceration of temporality within the neoliberal webs of technology, commerce and management.
Topic:
Globalization, Political Economy, Political Theory, and Power Politics

669. Managing Strategic Competition with China

Author:
Philip C. Saunders
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Officials in the Obama administration have highlighted the need for a “positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship” with China that can help the United States address an array of global challenges. Administration officials have not adopted the “responsible stakeholder” language that characterized recent U.S. China policy, but their overall approach appears compatible with that concept. Initial policy statements have focused on expanding U.S.-China cooperation, with particular emphasis on addressing the global economic crisis and climate change.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Globalization, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States and China

670. Expanding Study Abroad Capacity at U.S. Colleges and Universities

Author:
Peggy Blumenthal(ed.) and Robert Gutierrez(ed.)
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education (IIE)
Abstract:
In order to explore the capacity of U.S. institutions to send more students abroad, IIE, in collaboration with the Forum on Education Abroad, administered an online snapshot survey in September 2008 among the IIE Network and Forum membership groups, two institutional membership associations that represent a large cohort of U.S. institutions deeply involved and committed to expanding study abroad and other international educational opportunities for their students. Typical members include: U.S. higher education institutions, study abroad program provider organizations, overseas institutions, and other organizations involved in international education.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Cooperation, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States