Economic Globalisation

11 Key excerpts on "Economic Globalisation"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Liberty Beyond Neo-Liberalism

  A Republican Critique of Liberal Governance in a Globalising Age

  • S. Slaughter(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  While globalisation, as the slow and uneven expansion of modernity over the last five hundred years, is an opened-ended process, the form and context of contemporary globalisation is not preordained. The ratchet- ing up of global integration since the 1970s is significantly linked to changes in the form of economic and technological organisation on the part of firms, whole industries and societies around the world (Castells 1989: 23–5). This change has led to increasing interactions between and across states, such that economic and social relations are no longer only national or international in that such processes routinely transcend state borders and are “less tied to territorial frame- works” (Scholte 1997: 430–1; see also Castells 1996: 92–3). This quali- tative increase in global integration is also connected to the increasing prominence of neo-liberalism both as a discourse and as political rationale that shapes governance in many states around the world, as well as international economic agreements. These developments explain the social restructuring and the forms of global interdepend- ence, hierarchy and fragmentation evident since the late twentieth century. Because this phase of integration is characterised by the neo-liberal extension of capitalist relationships it is referred to as economic or neo-liberal globalisation. Economic Globalisation is the structured process where economic organisation is global rather than national or international (Cox 1997: 55). While capitalism has long operated on a worldwide scale, and the interwar period was characterised by low levels of trade and rising state autarky, the post war period was defined by an expansion of international trade and co-operation. But, eco- nomic globalisation represents a development from an international economy, in that economic activity is globally organised by actors and frameworks that conceive of the globe as a whole as being the location of economic activity.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A Theory of Sustainable Sociocultural and Economic Development

  • Mohamed Rabie(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 7 Economy and Globalization A n expanding free market system, cheaper and more efficient trans- portation systems, and faster, more reliable communications systems have pushed national economies to link with each other, forming a global economy. Meanwhile, the internationalization of major financial, trade, and investment markets have made economic globalization a dynamic, self-sustaining, ever-expanding process that recognizes no political bor- ders, ideologies, or national sovereignties. In the process, globalization has enabled regions within national borders to move in different directions at different speeds according to their particular strengths and historic connec- tions to exploit available opportunities, causing many national economies to be divided into regional economies with characteristics different from the national one. As a result, some of the economic links that used to tie regions within nation-states together have begun to fracture, and others that link them to foreign markets have gradually strengthened. The circumstances that enable national regions to move at different speeds and create special links with other countries cause income and knowledge gaps in society to widen; consequently, they undermine people’s desire to cooperate for the sake of a national interest. Defending globalization at the expense of the common good, Robert Kaplan wrote, “The traditional social contract that binds all citizens to the common good is gradually becom- ing an impediment to participation in the emerging global economy.” 1 As global economic change accelerates, it causes knowledge and incomes to be unevenly divided among states, regions, and cultural and ethnic groups within states. Only states, regions, and groups that have the right knowl- edge, the right attitudes, and solid social and physical infrastructures are able to reap the full benefits of globalization.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Globalization and the State: Volume I

  International Institutions, Finance, the Theory of the State and International Trade

  • C. Peláez(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  1 Globalization, the World Economy and Growth Introduction According to Wolf (2005, 14), globalization is “the integration of economic activities, across borders, through markets.” The process is dynamic in the direc- tion of increasing integration. The effects of economic events in one part of the world affect economic affairs in other parts of the world. The definition of the subject matter of this volume is IEI: the increasing cross-border flows of goods, services, capital, technology , ideas and humans. The subject matter is actually IEFP and institutions and has always existed in economics. In fact, the literature is united by the analysis of how the state intervenes in the international affairs of nations and through international institutions and organizations on the affairs of the entire world. In turn, economic change influences IEFP . The first section provides the dimensions of the world economy, on the order of more than $44 trillion in 2005. It also analyzes the interesting exercise by the World Bank (WB) on the future globalization until 2030. That exercise motivates the analysis of policies of individual countries and the need for collective action through international institutions and organizations. The final section deals with the available knowledge on the factors that determine the economic growth of nations. The prime goal of IEI is to promote economic growth and prosperity in the form of increasing living standards. Some conclusions are summarized at the end of the chapter. Dimensions of the world economy There are two subjects in this section. The WB has projected globalization for the next quarter of a century. This is a vital and unique exercise in discussing policy. Economic forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty. However, the consid- eration of various scenarios traces different approaches to economic policy that can be of significant usefulness.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Rethinking the New World Order

  • Georg Sørensen(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  But capitalist development is by defini-tion uneven (Smith 2008 ). The same goes for the process of eco-nomic globalization under capitalist conditions; it is uneven in terms of intensity and geographical scope, in both the international and the domestic dimension. The unevenness of economic globalization means that the idea of convergence towards a single global econ-omy is highly contested. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson make a distinction between two ideal types of economic globalization that help clarify the debate. The first is a growing level of interconnection between two national economies, for example in the form of invest-ment or trade; this could be called ‘intensified interdependence’. The other is a shift towards ‘true economic globalization’ with a global economic system no longer based on autonomous national econo-mies but on a ‘consolidated global marketplace for production, distri-bution and consumption’ (Hirst and Thompson 1992: 199). It is quite clear that we have not arrived in a world where ‘true economic globalization’ in the sense described by Hirst and Thomp-son has been created; there is not a unified, homogenous and totally integrated global economy. The question is rather whether pro-cesses of ‘intensified interdependence’ have led to a very high level of convergence and thus to a ‘single global economy’ as indicated by Mahbubani. Some developments surely point in this direction, as already indicated. Today’s level of economic globalization is unprecedented in the sense that we have, for the first time in history, a situation where all three circuits of capital—trade, finance and production—are strongly globalized (Went 2004 ). During the Economics: The Dynamics of Globalization 131 previous peak of economic globalization, the decades before World War I, it was only trade and finance that were highly international-ized.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Globalization, Development and The State

  The Performance of India and Brazil since 1990

  • Jørgen Dige Pedersen(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  8 1 Globalization, Contemporary Capitalism and Its Challenges for Developing Countries Introduction In recent years, globalization has been regarded as the key challenge for nations and states all over the world. Nevertheless there is still much uncertainty and lack of clarity with regard to what globalization stands for and how it affects societies. Consequently, the academic discussion on globalization tends to cover almost the whole field of the social sciences – politics, economics and culture (Held et al. 1999). Even if we limit the discussion to economic globalization, there is only a little less disagreement and confusion over the use of the term (Dicken 1998, p. 4). In practical terms there is, however, considerable agreement among researchers and observers that an increase in ‘worldwide inter- connectedness’ (Held et al. 1999, p. 2), including economic intercon- nectedness, constitutes a core element in the process of globalization. 1 The disputes concern, among other things, the question of whether there has in fact occurred a significant increase in interconnectedness measured in terms of international flows of trade, direct investments and other financial flows. No one would dispute that all types of inter- national economic flows have indeed increased tremendously in recent years, but many contend that the level of international interconnected- ness is still lower than or on par with the level attained in the golden period of capitalist expansion in the late 19th/early 20th century (Hirst and Thompson 1996; Bairoch 1996). In terms of global spread of eco- nomic flows, this may well be the case, but it is not self-evident that those historical ‘international’ flows were in fact truly international. A significant proportion of trade and investment flows in those days was confined to geographical areas and societies which as colonies, depend- encies or otherwise were under the control of the political authorities of

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Introduction to Sociological Theory

  Theorists, Concepts, and their Applicability to the Twenty-First Century

  • Michele Dillon(Author)
  • 2024(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Thus the deputy editor of the influential news magazine The Economist states, “Globalization has a powerful economic momentum of its own. Technological progress, left to its own devices, promotes [economic] integration … [Economic] integration seems in many ways a natural economic pro- cess, which can only be reversed, if at all, when policies are deliberately framed to that end” (Cook 2003: 549). Further, economists see global trends in intranational (within-country) inequality as a result of “the fact that the opening to trade and foreign investment was incomplete,” concentrated in select cities and provinces at the expense of rural and other areas (Lindert and Williamson 2003: 255). By extension, in this view, global inequality is a result of “differential access to the benefits of the new economy” and of particular countries’ and regions’ failures to participate in globalization (2003: 263). Sociologists apply a very different framework to the economic aspects of globaliza- tion. They fully recognize the expansion of new markets that is entailed in globaliza- tion and emphasize, as Giddens notes (1990: 76), the many advances made after World War II in expanding global relations of economic interdependence. This includes the opening up of new geographical centers of industrial production and the emergence of newly industrializing countries in the third world (1990: 76). Subsequently, the rise of a postindustrial information and service economy (see chapter 6) and today’s transna- tional informational economy (e.g., Fuchs 2008) further expanded world markets as well as the transnational social and political relationships that this expansion necessi- tates. But, in highlighting these globalizing forces, sociologists also emphasize the his- torical, geographical, and structural unevenness of globalizing economic processes (Wallerstein 2004), and their weakening effects on local subsistence economies (e.g., Giddens 2003: 17).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Economic Factor in International Relations

  A Brief Introduction

  • Spyros Economides, Peter Wilson(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  Globalisation is a big and amorphous subject. Academic discussion of it takes place within and between many different disciplines, most notably Economics, Geography, Information Technology, International History, International Relations, Management Science and Sociology. The word ‘globalisation’ has a lot in common with words like ‘im-perialism’ or ‘sovereignty’. It is used in a variety of different ways, in a variety of different contexts, for a variety of different purposes. Within academic debates, one can identify a number of different concepts of globalisation at work. One can identify a number of different theories about its nature, how it emerged, its significance, the speed with which it is advancing, and its normative implications. But it is also a word of political rhetoric: a word used in actual political debates in order to rally support, win friends and confound enemies. Indeed, the qualities which make it so useful a word politically – its ambiguity and emotiveness – are precisely the qualities that make it so hazardous a word when it comes to serious analysis. A Global Economy? The term ‘global economy’ has entered into the vocabulary of politics with some force. In debates, both popular and specialist, it is increasingly used in preference to its older cousins ‘international/world economy’ and ‘international/world economic system’. The clear implication is that the world has recently become more economically unified, perhaps to the extent that a single ‘global’ economic system CHAPTER 11 Globalisation 177 has emerged, replacing the more fragmented ‘world’ system of regimes that preceded it. This is because ‘global’ suggests one-ness or unity in a way that ‘world’ does not. We can say ‘it’s a diverse world’, but we cannot say ‘it’s a diverse globe’. The former phrase is clear and comprehensible. The latter is awkward and borders on incoherence.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography

  • Andrew Leyshon, Roger Lee, Linda McDowell, Peter Sunley, Andrew Leyshon, Roger Lee, Linda McDowell, Peter Sunley, SAGE Publications Ltd(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  6 The Consequences of Economic Globalization Peter Sunley INTRODUCTION The first few years of the twenty-first century witnessed a global economic boom and a dramatic increase in the intensity and exten-sity of global economic integration. It was no coincidence that this period also saw a wave of highly optimistic, liberal diagnoses of glo-balization and its consequences. As Bisley (2007:16) remarked ‘the supporters of a largely economic version of globalization and those who present it as a positive and univer-sal force are, at present, largely in the ascend-ancy.’ The eminent economist Jeffrey Sachs (2005), for example, recently argued that the latest dramatic round of globalization repre-sents a momentous transition from an era of world economic divergence and North Atlantic dominance that prevailed between 1750 and 1950, to process of convergence. He suggests that the forces of divergence unleashed by the first industrial revolution and reinforced by colonialism have finally been superseded as globalization diffuses ideas and technological capacity. The open-ing of previously closed economies and the adoption of liberalization policies in China, Russia and India have roughly doubled the size of labour force in the integrating world economic system (Venables, 2006). On cur-rent trends, by 2025 the Chinese economy measured by GDP will be larger than that of the US and by 2050 that of India will also be larger. According to Sachs (2005:187), ‘The overwhelming dominance of the West, which lasted half a millennium, is probably passé ’. In this view, the integration of trade, production, finance and the spread of global treaties and conventions acts to spread eco-nomic growth through the diffusion of tech-nologies to those countries that adopt open liberal economic policies. In similar fashion Wolf (2004) celebrated the benign conse-quences of liberal globalization, which in his view provided a golden opportunity for growth and poverty reduction.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  From Walmart to Al Qaeda

  An Interdisciplinary Approach to Globalization

  • David Murillo(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3Economic globalization

  3.1 A sociological approach to economics: definitions and concepts

  If there is one single issue that usually predominates in the debate on globalization it is that of the economy. Its central role is due to the fact that it is considered to be the main driving force of change and the foundation on which lie the whole series of technological, cultural and political changes that help to describe the phenomenon of globalization. This said, we need to bear in mind that the present economic analysis of globalization in recent decades has developed characteristics of its own, different from those of previous decades, that force us to analyse it from two angles: first that of the productive economy, and then that of finance, which we will address in the next chapter. In the following pages we aim to arrive at an understanding of the specific nature of economic globalization, lending special attention to its most recent historical development: its phases and the elements that characterize it. We will then go on to explore its consequences from the viewpoint of the redistribution of political and economic power, particularly with regard to large corporations and states. Lastly, we will examine its impacts and reactions to it on a global scale, and tackle one of the key discussions at present: its impact on planetary inequality.

  The approach that interests us, however, is not that taken by economists but for the most part that which is defended by economic sociology. The chief difference between these two disciplines lies in the methodology used and the importance of the role of institutions in accounting for a particular economic phenomenon.1 Economics tends to proceed deductively , on the basis of premises that explain human behaviour. In neoclassical economics, currently predominant in universities, these premises are erected around an abstraction, the economic anthropology of Homo economicus , according to which, broadly speaking, all individuals are selfish, materialistic, individualistic, rational and out to maximize our preferences in a market (of goods and services) in which there are suppliers and demanders. This abstraction may be accompanied by others, such as the notion of perfectly competitive markets or the efficient market hypothesis. We will discuss this later on, but not yet. All we are interested in here is to point out the deductive approach of economics and alongside this the disdain this discipline shows for the effects of theories on the world around us. In the words of Nobel economics prize laureate Milton Friedman, the interest of a theory lies not in the goodness or veracity of its assumptions but in its ability to predict the outcome of a particular action.2

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Economic Dimensions of Globalization

  • D. Das(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The final result of heightened competition is improved systemic efficiency. Here we are taking the normal definition of efficiency, that is, producing more with the given resources or producing the same quantum with fewer resources. As globalization is essentially driven by structural changes and technological developments, transaction costs in the glob- alizing economies have tended to reduce. In the integrating economies, exposure of private agents to global competition has increased. Therefore, efficiency level in both the goods and factor markets has been affected favorably. Citrin and Fischer (2000) have decomposed the effects of globalization- driven competition into microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. At the microeconomic level, as global integration affects both goods and factor markets, it leads to lower price mark-ups in the goods sector, lower excess wages in the labor markets and less expensive capital due to movement of capital from the capital abundant economies to the capi- tal scare economics. Unwarranted price mark-ups are in general unsus- tainable. They become more unsustainable in a globalized world economy. So do the wage hikes that are not supported by productivity 80 The Economic Dimensions of Globalization increases. Thus, global integration nurtures discipline in the market- place as well as promotes it in the place of production. The microeco- nomic impact of enhanced competition and market discipline is a one-time price decline. At the macroeconomic level, as new economies enter the global mar- ket scene the market competition become keener. When the four Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) 12 broke into the global market place in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the OECD Secretariat com- missioned a study to delve into the effect of their entry on the erstwhile industrial economies.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Governance in a Globalizing World

  • Joseph S. Nye, John D. Donahue, Joseph S. Nye, John D. Donahue(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Brookings Institution Press

    (Publisher)

  JEFFREY FRANKEL Globalization of the Economy CONOMIC GLOBALIZATION is one of the most powerful forces to have shaped the postwar world. In particular, international trade in goods and services has become increasingly important over the past fifty years, and international financial flows over the past thirty years. This chapter documents quantitatively the process of globalization for trade and finance. It then briefly goes beyond the causes of international economic integration to consider its effects, concluding that globalization is overall a good thing, not just for economic growth but also when noneconomic goals are taken into account. The two major drivers of economic globalization are reduced costs to transportation and communication in the private sector and reduced policy barriers to trade and investment on the part of the public sector. Technological progress and innovation have long been driving the costs of transportation and communication steadily lower. In the postwar period we have seen major further cost-saving advances, even within The author would like to thank Jagdish Bhagwati, Ash Carter, Farhad Rassekh, Dani Rodrik, Pierre Sauve, Ira Shapiro, Rob Stavins, Arvind Subramanian, Daniel Tarullo, and Alan Winters for comments. 45 E 2 46 JEFFREY FRANKEL ocean shipping: supertankers, roll-on-roll-off ships, and containerized cargo. Between 1920 and 1990 the average ocean freight and port charges per short ton of U.S. import and export cargo fell from $95.00 to $29.00 (in 1990 dollars). An increasing share of cargo goes by air. Between 1930 and 1990, average air transport revenue per passenger mile fell from $0.68 to $0.11. Jet air shipping and refrigeration have changed the status of goods that had previously been classified altogether as not tradable internationally. Now fresh-cut flowers, perishable broc-coli and strawberries, live lobsters, and even ice cream are sent between continents. 1 Communications costs have fallen even more rapidly.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book