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June 26, 2007
Globalization backlash
I'm teaching a course in international economic relations that is primarily for MBA students. Tonight their reading assignment was Dani Rodrik's "The Global Governance of Trade as if Development Really Mattered". For Wednesday, they will read, among other things, Rodrik's "Trading in Illusions". So I've been doing quite a bit of reading on trade and development, the collapse of the Doha round, etc. As you would expect, it has had me thinking a lot about public sentiment toward globalization.
So when I saw the New Economist's post tonight on the changing opinions toward globalization, I immediately sent the link to my class. It fits perfectly with what we've been discussing.
This article from the Wall St. Journal does as well.
A paper commissioned by the Financial Services Forum sets out several policy options aimed at cushioning the blow from job losses and other dislocations caused by global trade, in a bid to defuse protectionist sentiment in the U.S. and promote free-trade agreements.
The banking, investment and other CEOs who belong to the group have consistently cited protectionism as the leading threat to continued U.S. and global economic growth.
The effort marks one of the first times top business leaders have sought to weigh in collectively in the globalization debate. The paper acknowledges that trade can have ill effects on some groups of workers -- such as stagnant personal earnings and job losses -- and recommends ways to reduce, or at least redistribute, the pain.
Incidentally, one of the authors of the paper was Matthew Slaughter, who also co-wrote this article with Kenneth Scheve cited by the New Economist.
This has been building for some time, and isn't going away any time soon.
Posted by William Polley at June 26, 2007 01:10 AM
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