From Trade Liberalization to Economic Integration: The Clash between Private and Public Goods

As tariffs and quotas have fallen substantially during successive rounds of multilateral trade negotiations, attention has increasingly focused on harmonizing a variety of "domestic" policies that limit or distort international trade and investment, such as intellectual property protection, environmental rules, labor standards, and competition (antitrust) policies. An increase in such "deep integration" or "system convergence" would indeed maximize global welfare as regards transactions in private goods, but it also undermines the ability of sovereign states to respond to their own voters' preferences as regards such public goods as inflation and unemployment rates, national defense, income distribution, environmental quality, and worker protection. The resulting tensions have made the negotiation of multilateral trade agreements and regional integration arrangements more complex and difficult and the resistance to them more pronounced.

American Capitalism and Global Convergence: After the Bubble

Throughout the 1990s, the social-market capitalism that prevailed in most of the larger countries of continental Western Europe and the producer-oriented or mercantilist capitalism characteristic of Japan and a number of other large Asian economies were under strong pressures to migrate their economies toward U.S. (or Anglo-Saxon)-style investor capitalism. This paper explores whether the pressures for convergence exerted by globalization persisted into the first decade of the 21st century, after the American "bubble" burst and the United States fell from grace in a number of economic, social, and political dimensions. American-style investor capitalism indeed continues to be the dominant model where capital markets and corporate governance are concerned. Various pressures continue to push the labor markets of industrial nations in that direction as well, despite strong political and social backlash. Where relations with customers are concerned, however, it is the requirements imposed on products, services and production processes by the stringent regulations of the EU's social market capitalism, and its adherence to the precautionary principle, that dominate. At the same time, U.S.-style capitalism is itself evolving as its participants struggle to restore public trust and to integrate the adaptability and market-responsiveness of its institutions with a broadened focus on corporate responsibility to multiple stakeholders.

Global Monetarism and the Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments

macroeconomics, global monetarism, monetary approach, balance of payments

FDI in Emerging Markets: A Home-Country View

In the 1950s and 60s, the American view of foreign direct investment(FDI) in emerging markets, then called less-developed or developing countries, was that it was desirable for three reasons: as a vehicle for economic development and a partial substitute for foreign aid; to promote economic stability and democracy; and as part of the strategy to contain Communism. In the 1990's, the relationship between such investment and economic development is regarded as more uncertain, the Cold War is over, and many of the developing countries have emerged as serious players in global competition, thus altering the context in which such FDI is viewed. Over the 40-50 intervening years, the U.S. economy has shrunk as a proportion of the global total and has become much more open to foreign trade, thus increasing the exposure of American firms to the global economy and reducing their market power. At the same time, both the nature and the scale of FDI have changed substantially, and the general stance of emerging market countries toward such investment has moved from widespread hostility and suspicion to widespread efforts to attract it. For all these reasons, U.S. policies regarding FDI in emerging-market countries are far more affected by fears regarding its impact on our own economy than they used to be. Among the concerns are the effects on American jobs, wages, income distribution, trade and payments balances, the pace of R&D and innovation, the size of the domestic stock of capital, and the possibility of a global "race for the bottom" in environmental and labor-rights policies. Although most of these concerns are misplaced, such investment does create both winners and losers and thus can give rise to political and public controversy. Therefore, U.S. government policies toward FDI in emerging markets today are ambivalent. While some, including a number of initiatives in the GATT negotiations and the World Trade Organization, are supportive, others, including export controls, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and certain types of import restrictions are either hostile to such investment or seek to limit it in various ways.foreign direct investment, emerging markets, merging economies, developing countries, multinationals, globalization

FDI in Emerging Markets: A Home-Country View

In the 1950s and 60s, the American view of foreign direct investment(FDI) in emerging markets, then called less-developed or developing countries, was that it was desirable for three reasons: as a vehicle for economic development and a partial substitute for foreign aid; to promote economic stability and democracy; and as part of the strategy to contain Communism. In the 1990's, the relationship between such investment and economic development is regarded as more uncertain, the Cold War is over, and many of the developing countries have emerged as serious players in global competition, thus altering the context in which such FDI is viewed. Over the 40-50 intervening years, the U.S. economy has shrunk as a proportion of the global total and has become much more open to foreign trade, thus increasing the exposure of American firms to the global economy and reducing their market power. At the same time, both the nature and the scale of FDI have changed substantially, and the general stance of emerging market countries toward such investment has moved from widespread hostility and suspicion to widespread efforts to attract it. For all these reasons, U.S. policies regarding FDI in emerging-market countries are far more affected by fears regarding its impact on our own economy than they used to be. Among the concerns are the effects on American jobs, wages, income distribution, trade and payments balances, the pace of R&D and innovation, the size of the domestic stock of capital, and the possibility of a global "race for the bottom" in environmental and labor-rights policies. Although most of these concerns are misplaced, such investment does create both winners and losers and thus can give rise to political and public controversy. Therefore, U.S. government policies toward FDI in emerging markets today are ambivalent. While some, including a number of initiatives in the GATT negotiations and the World Trade Organization, are supportive, others, including export controls, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and certain types of import restrictions are either hostile to such investment or seek to limit it in various ways.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39639/3/wp254.pd

Political Agency and the Responsibility Paradox: Multinationals and Corporate Social Responsibility

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78164/1/ipc-107-davis-whitman-zald-political-agency-responsibility-paradox-multinationals-corporate-social-responsibility.pd

The Responsibility Paradox: Multinational Firms and Global Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper examines the impact of multinational firms' increasingly blurred geographical and institutional boundaries on the nature and definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It begins with a brief history of CSR, describes changes in the global corporation and the pressures impinging on it over the past 25 years, and analyzes the resulting mismatch between the contemporary corporation and traditional concepts of CSR. It then dissects some of the issues raised by this new concept of CSR, and speculates on future trajectories for CSR in multinational corporations as globalization continues to exert pressure for convergence of such standards into a more universal definition of Global CSR.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21613/1/IPC-working-paper-004-whitmanDavisZald.pd

Glacial History of the North Atlantic Marine Snail, Littorina saxatilis, Inferred from Distribution of Mitochondrial DNA Lineages

The North Atlantic intertidal gastropod, Littorina saxatilis (Olivi, 1792), exhibits extreme morphological variation between and within geographic regions and has become a model for studies of local adaptation; yet a comprehensive analysis of the species' phylogeography is lacking. Here, we examine phylogeographic patterns of the species' populations in the North Atlantic and one remote Mediterranean population using sequence variation in a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (607 bp). We found that, as opposed to many other rocky intertidal species, L. saxatilis has likely had a long and continuous history in the Northwest Atlantic, including survival during the last glacial maximum (LGM), possibly in two refugia. In the Northeast Atlantic, several areas likely harboured refugial populations that recolonized different parts of this region after glacial retreat, resulting in strong population structure. However, the outlying monomorphic Venetian population is likely a recent anthropogenic introduction from northern Europe and not a remnant of an earlier wider distribution in the Mediterranean Sea. Overall, our detailed phylogeography of L. saxatilis adds an important piece to the understanding of Pleistocene history in North Atlantic marine biota as well as being the first study to describe the species' evolutionary history in its natural range. The latter contribution is noteworthy because the snail has recently become an important model species for understanding evolutionary processes of speciation; thus our work provides integral information for such endeavours