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2001. Outsourcing and Inequality

Author:
Paul Brenton, Bob Anderton, and Eva Oscarsson
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
This paper brings together and analyses the results of empirical analyses which, in contrast to most other studies, find that trade has been a significant cause of labour market inequality in various industrialised countries. The approach is based upon the concept of outsourcing – whereby the low-skill parts of the production chain are 'outsourced' to low-wage countries. A distinguishing feature of the empirical work is the use of highly detailed trade data, which allow imports from high- and low-wage countries to be separately identified at the industry level. Using cost minimisation framework, we show that imports from low-wage countries have made a significant contribution to the decline in the wage-bill share and/or relative employment of less-skilled workers in the UK, the USA, Sweden and Italy. We also show how the country-specific characteristics of outsourcing can lead to quite different inequality outcomes in different countries. In line with other studies, we also find that technology has played an important role in causing the increase in inequality in many countries. However, there is also some evidence that some of the rapid increase in the application of new technologies in recent decades has been trade-induced through mechanisms such as 'defensive innovation'.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and United Kingdom

2002. Globalized and Localized Digital Divides Along the Information Highway: A Fragile Synthesis Across Bridges, Ramps, Cloverleaves, and Ladders.

Author:
Carl Cuneo
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
There has been a tendency, especially in North America and Europe, and among technology enthusiasts and some educators, to assume that the whole world is connected to the Internet, and surfs the World Wide Web. Why would we use the term, 'World Wide Web', if we were not talking about a global phenomenon? However, Internet statistics show that only about six to eight percent of the world's six billion population is connected to the Internet. Approximately ninety-two percent of the world is NOT connected to, nor uses, the Internet. 1 The erroneous assumption of universal connectivity is not simply a statistical mistake. Governments, corporations, community organizations, and individuals make many incorrect decisions, with sometimes dramatic and far-reaching consequences, on the basis of the assumption that most of the world is connected to the Internet. Not only is the vast majority of the world not connected to the Internet, most people do not even have the computers, skills, experience, interest, or awareness to become connected. The disconnected are not randomly distributed, but have specific demographic, social, economic, racial, ethnic, gender, gerontological, and political characteristics that amount to a systematic bias of exclusion, often referred to as the “digital have-nots”. Similarly, the connected are not randomly distributed, but possess particular demographic, social, economic and political characteristics making up what has become known as the ““Digital Haves””. The separation, chasm, abyss, canyon, gulf, or distance between the ““Digital Haves”” and “digital have-nots” has become known as the “Digital Divide.”
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Globalization, Poverty, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

2003. Global Environmental Institutions: Perspectives on Reform

Author:
Duncan Brack and Joy Hyvarinen
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
One of the key issues on the agenda of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in August/September 2002 was 'international sustainable development governance'-how international institutions concerned with the nexus of economic, social and environmental issues should be structured. There is broad consensus that the international decision-making architecture in this area needs improving, but less agreement on what it should look like.
Topic:
Environment, International Law, International Organization, Science and Technology, and United Nations

2004. Indoor Air Pollution: The Quiet Killer

Author:
Vinod Mishra, Robert D Retherford, and Kirk R Smith
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Air pollution in big cities gets headlines, but in many rural areas of developing countries indoor air pollution is an even more serious health problem. Long-term exposure to smoke from cooking indoors with wood, animal dung, and other biomass fuels contributes to respiratory illness, lung cancer, and blindness. As a cause of ill health in the world, indoor air pollution ranks behind only malnutrition, AIDS, tobacco, and poor water/sanitation. The results of a national household survey in India linking cooking smoke to tuberculosis and blindness in adults and acute respiratory infections in children add to a growing body of evidence from other studies that reducing exposures to toxic emissions from cookstoves can substantially improve health and save lives. Governments can do more to promote clean fuel use, educate people to the risks of exposure to cook smoke, and provide and promote more efficient and better-ventilated cookstoves. Curbing indoor air pollution is not only a key to better health but also an important investment for achieving development goals and improving living standards.
Topic:
Environment, Human Welfare, Science and Technology, and United Nations

2005. Frames, Framing, and Reframing In, and Through, The Mass Media: Reflection of Four Protracted Environmental Disputes in the Israeli Press

Author:
Ravit Richter and Ariella Vraneski
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University
Abstract:
The mass media is part and parcel of modern life. In recent years environmental conflicts have increasingly become part of the public agenda, and they now gain vast media coverage. While all agree that fully functioning media sectors are essential for expanding and supporting democracy on global, national, and local levels alike, many claim that the media's interference, by definition, escalates conflicts. Recent studies confirm that many roles can be attributed to media coverage, including some that lead conflicts toward constructive resolutions. The hypothesis of our research is that through frames, the media is both influenced by and influential with regard to the conflict's dynamics.
Topic:
Environment and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

2006. Reducing urban and industrial pollution in Russia

Author:
Steve Gale
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
A USAID wastewater treatment project improved Moscow's drinking water and its companion watershed development project advanced environmental education in the districts near Moscow. A third project in Volgograd failed to build a viable air quality monitoring program to curb pollution. Sustainability and replicability were undercut by failure to plan for replication from the outset and promotion of state-of-the-art (rather than appropriate) technology. Lack of good baseline data and the inability to distinguish results stemming from the projects from those related to the economic downturn made independent assessment of project effectiveness difficult.
Topic:
Environment, Human Welfare, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Moscow

2007. Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era

Author:
Gina Neff and David Strark
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
How has the Internet influenced economic organization? Many approach this question strictly economically by examining the productivity gains from particular technological advances or the roles that dot-coms and other Internet-based organizations play with the economy. We approach this question differently—we move away from a macro-social analysis to consider the co-evolution of new technologies and organizational forms. In other words, how has the process of technological change in the Internet era influenced the way we organize economic activities? In this chapter we discuss how information technologies foster the emergent design and user-driven design of websites and other online media, as well as products and organizations off-line. We also consider how to mitigate the social costs of these changes.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology

2008. Link, Search, Interact: The Co-Evolution of NGOs and Interactive Technology

Author:
Jonathan Bach and David Strark
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Interactive technology is a key factor used to explain the recent growth and prominence of NGOs, who today are engaged in the transformation of national, international and transnational political space. Yet technology cannot explain NGOs' rise, for technology is but a context which afford opportunities. We ask what it is that allows NGOs to take advantage of new circumstances, and focus our discussion on the co-evolution of NGOs with interactive technology. Our approach is part of a growing body of social science research that seeks to overcome the artificial divide between “society” and “technology” by viewing the social as consisting of humans and non-humans (objects, things, artifacts). Viewing technology not as a tool but as part of a co-evolutionary process that shapes organizational forms and practices will help us understand why NGOs have, given the opportunities provided by the retrenchment of the welfare state and the end of the cold war, been able to assume a more powerful and controversial role as co-constituents of global transformation.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, Non-Governmental Organization, and Science and Technology

2009. Productivity, Investment, and Current Accounts: Reassessing the Evidence

Author:
Jaime Marquez
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The most widely accepted explanation for the inverse association between private investments and current accounts [Glick and Rogoff, 1995] rests on data for manufactures through 1990. Is this consensus robust to revisions to the national accounts and the expansion of information technologies since 1990? To address this question I replicate their results and I find that post 1990 developments eliminate the support for such a conclusion. I also implement alternative formulations and find, again, a lack of empirical support for their findings. Thus I examine the role of measurement errors and focus on the treatment of the manufacturing sector as representative of the whole economy and the exclusion of the contribution of capital when measuring productivity. Correcting these two measurement errors restores to Glick and Rogoff's conclusion its original strength.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

2010. International Comparisons of Productivity Growth: The Role of Information Technology and Regulatory Practices

Author:
Christopher Gust and Jaime Marquez
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
While information technologies (IT) are credited with the recent acceleration in productivity in the United States, many other industrial countries have not experienced a pickup in productivity growth. To explain this productivity divergence, we use panel data from 1992 to 1999 for 13 industrial countries and find that this divergence is driven in part by differences in both the production and adoption of information technologies. Based on this finding, we proceed to investigate what factors might play a role in explaining differences in IT adoption. Our results support the view that burdensome regulatory environments and in particular regulations affecting labor market practices have impeded the adoption of information technologies and slowed productivity growth in a number of industrial countries. We then develop a theoretical model with vintage capital and labor to evaluate the effect of more stringent labor market regulations on a firm's decision to adopt new technologies. We establish conditions under which a tax on firing workers delays the adoption of IT technology. These conditions occur when technological change is skill-biased and a firm must upgrade the quality of its workforce through labor turnover. The resulting delay in adopting IT technology then has negative implications for economy-wide productivity and is largely consistent with our empirical results.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States