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101. Free Trade and Worker Displacement: The Trade Adjustment Assistance Act and the Case of NAFTA

Author:
Jerry Haar and Antonio Garrastazu
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Trade liberalization, a fundamental feature of U.S. economic policy since the end of the Second World War, has increasingly become a contentious domestic political issue during the last decade. Proponents and opponents of free trade transcend political party affiliation, industry, occupation, geographical locale, income level, age, and other socioeconomic and demographic factors. In addition, the U.S. public and its leaders for the most part hold qualified, mixed, or inconsistent opinions about trade liberalization and the larger and rapidly increasing phenomenon known as globalization. In a February 9-14, 2000, nationwide poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, a majority of respondents (64 percent compared to 27 percent) stated that free trade with other countries is good for the United States. On the other hand, an NBC News/ W all Street Journal poll several months later asked interviewees to respond to the following statement: “Foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy because cheap imports from abroad have hurt wages and cost jobs here at home.” Forty-eight percent of the respondents answered that it has been “bad” and 34 percent “good.”
Topic:
Industrial Policy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Latin America

102. Decentralized Cooperation and the Future of Regulatory Reform

Author:
Pepper D. Culpepper
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Faced with the fact of sweeping regulatory reform, how do companies decide how to respond to a new set of policies? This paper argues that this problem requires a new conception of policymaking: a conception that recognizes the analytical primacy of achieving coordination under uncertainty. I call this challenge the problem of securing decentralized cooperation. Negotiated reforms are a common leitmotif of the current wave of reforms taking place in various European countries, whereas American attempts to reinvent government opt to replace the state with the market. There are general lessons in this approach for both strategies. Unlike the earlier attempts to establish neo-corporatist bargains at the national level in European countries, the success of bargained pacts in Europe will depend increasingly on allowing private actors to design the best solutions to centrally identified problems. The challenges of bringing private information to bear on public policy will increase in the future, and not only in supply-side economic policy reforms. One such area is environmental regulation, which is typically viewed as an area of pure state regulation. This is also an area where market-based solutions are frequently proposed as the most efficient solution to problems of pollution. As I demonstrate through the initiative of the Chesapeake Bay Program in the United States, the challenges identified above for areas of economic policymaking are now relevant to environmental initiatives, even in liberal market economies such as the US and the UK. The extent of government success in such initiatives will be determined by the ability of governments to understand the importance of private information and their capacity to develop private sector institutions that can help procure it. Attempts to replace a malfunctioning state with a market solution, currently very much in vogue in certain quarters in the United States, will fail, as long as they do not recognize the distinctive problems inherent in securing decentralized cooperation.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

103. Microsoft's Appealing Case

Author:
Alan Reynolds and Robert A. Levy
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's final judgment in the Microsoft case indicates that he has fallen hook, line, and sinker for the government's flawed arguments. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is unlikely to be so accommodating. The Justice Department's case will crumble as a result of procedural errors, flawed fact-finding, wrongheaded legal conclusions, and Jackson's preposterous plan to break up the software company most directly responsible for America's high-tech revolution.
Topic:
Government, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and America

104. The Japanese Network State in U.S. Comparison: Does Embeddedness Yield Resources and Influence?

Author:
Jeffrey Broadbent
Publication Date:
07-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Scholars describe the East Asian—Japanese and South Korean—state as a network state that guides the private sector by means of embedded relationships (i.e., informal persuasive ties). In theoretical terms, these embedded ties represent informally institutionalized social capital. This study refines the network state thesis by comparing embedded ties with tangible resource exchanges in their effects upon political influence among political (organizational) actors in Japanese and U.S. labor politics. The network state thesis predicts that in Japan embedded ties should channel the flow of tangible resources (e.g., vital information, political support), and that embedded third party brokers should mediate this flow. Embedded ties have generally pervaded the Japanese polity, whereas in the United States, they have remained concentrated within the labor sector. In Japan, the embedded ties form a “bow tie” pattern: the Ministry of Labor (MOL) bridges a structural hole between corporatistic business and labor. The presence of embedded third parties predicts the dyadic exchange of information. Political support, by contrast, forms a distinct, nonembedded network, centered on political parties. Tensions between the embedded network and the instrumental political support network help explain characteristics of Japanese politics, such as the relative slowness of its response to financial crisis.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Israel, East Asia, and South Korea

105. Market, Technology, and Policy Drivers: The Future Structure of the Electricity Industry

Author:
Elizabeth Malone
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The electricity industry is being challenged on the one hand by restructuring and on the other by the potential of new technologies. Restructuring is proceeding slowly and unevenly, with uncertain national leadership, disputes over the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), continuing and increasing environmental concerns, and a plethora of state policies and regulations.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

106. Changing Rules In the Market for Attention: New Strategies for Minority Programming

Author:
Richard P. Adler
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
In July 1999, a controversy erupted that focused public attention on the issue of the representation of blacks and other minorities in the media. It began when Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), expressed dismay that only one of the twenty-six new prime time television programs planned by the four major broadcast networks for the upcoming fall season included a black actor in a leading role. Shortly thereafter, representatives of several other minority groups, including Hispanics and Asians, claimed that their members were also underrepresented in network programming. The controversy generated a good deal of discussion about how television programs are developed and cast. Eventually, the NAACP and the four networks reached agreements that identified a variety of steps the networks would take to increase minority participation in network programming.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

107. Campaigns in Cyberspace: Toward A New Regulatory Approach

Author:
Anthony Corrado
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The explosive growth of the Internet as a medium for political activity is transforming our conceptions of political communication and the methods by which campaigns for public office are conducted. This rapidly evolving technology has already made possible an unprecedented flow of information and new modes of citizen participation in the electoral process. The Internet has provided candidates with a means of communicating directly with voters without the inter-mediation or interpretation of the news media. Candidates now use web sites to offer voters texts of public statements and detailed information on their policy positions, as well as audio and video materials. These sites allow individuals to “customize” information so that they may access materials that are relevant to their particular concerns or interests. Similarly, these sites allow candidates to provide individuals with updated information as it becomes available, facilitating a type of interaction between campaigns and individual voters that was not possible before the advent of digital communications.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

108. Coming Together -- Bridging the Gap between Investors and Minority Internet Entrepreneurs

Author:
Robert M. Entman
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
A group of about two dozen entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, researchers, and nonprofit community development leaders met on April 7-8, 2000, at the Aspen Institute Wye River Conference Center in Queenstown, Maryland, to discuss “Coming Together: Bridging the Gap between Investors and Minority Internet Entrepreneurs.” The group identified a series of problems that impede minorities' success in raising sufficient capital to launch and maintain entrepreneurial enterprises in the Internet market, and brainstormed creatively about resources, institutions, and processes to improve the situation.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Maryland

109. Ecologies of Innovation: The Role of Information and Communications Technologies

Author:
David Bollier
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
It has become a truism in recent years that technological innovation lies at the core of a robust economy. Once an arcane matter for economists, innovation has moved from the back salons of corporate strategy to the grand ballroom of mainstream culture. Fueled by the World Wide Web and other electronic technologies, unknown entrepreneurs with big ideas have joined with investment bankers, multinational corporations, and Main Street investors on a relentless search for The New New Thing, as the title of Michael Lewis' book on Silicon Valley calls it.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

110. Six Degrees of Competition: Correlating Regulation With the Telecommunications Marketplace

Author:
Robert M. Entman
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The Fourteenth Annual Aspen Institute Conference on Telecommunications Policy explored the contentious issues of regulatory symmetry and asymmetry in the telecommunications industry. The core question was whether regulatory policy should be harmonized so that all similarly situated providers are treated the same way. Assuming that symmetrical treatment is desirable, exactly how should regulators approach the task?
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States