World Economies

11 Key excerpts on "World Economies"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Rethinking Globalization

  • Nick Bisley(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  The differing circumstances – political, geographic or resource endow-ment – of states and societies drives competition and the search for advantage and profit. 84 Rethinking Globalization The contemporary world economy is, by historical measures, relatively open. International trade is conducted with very low average tariff levels on manufactured goods (OECD, 1999). Most economies are open to foreign capital movements, no longer is there widespread support for strict controls on the amount of money that can enter or leave a state. There are very few countries that try to avoid or minimize their contact with the world economy. While one can point to the many poor states of sub-Saharan Africa as examples of those excluded from the system, this exclusion is rarely self-ordained as in the case of North Korea. More generally, the contemporary world economy is distinguished by the extent of multilateral institutions that have been developed to try to influence the character of global economic relations. Given the importance of international institutions to globalization, they will be examined in detail in Chapter 5 . Trade As discussed in Chapter 2 , global trade is more important to the world economy than ever before. Sceptics often point out that trade among the European powers prior to the First World War was of a higher real value than it is today. This may be true, but trade as a proportion of global GDP is considerably greater than at any time in the modern period. The most authoritative aggregate figures note that exports as a percentage of worldwide GDP were 4.6% in 1870 and in 1998 they were 17.2% (Maddison, 2001: 363). There are a number of broad trends in global trade which are worth noting. First, the composition of trade has undergone significant changes.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Comparative Development Perspectives

  • Gustav Ranis(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  I shall argue that the time has arrived for much greater conscious analytical attention on the part of economists to the one world of economics: the economic characteristics, behaviour, and performance of the entire global economy. I shall do this not out of visionary zeal afid utopian enthusiasms such as frequently characterize those who speak of global issues; but out of a pragmatic assessment of the limitations of much of economics, as at present usually practiced, in the attainment of Reynolds' aspirations for the discipline. It will become apparent that .there is already quite a lot of world economics being done, though perceptions have not quite caught up with actual practice. The analysis of world economic problems is almost invariably couched in terms of a society of nations in which global problems are synonymous with international and usually intergovernmental 63 64 ones. That part of economic analysis which is concerned with world problems has evolved as international economics. (A quick glance through my list of currently available textbooks reveals only one which carries world rather than international economics in its title --Caves and Jones' (1977) World Trade and Payments --but its contents are not differentiated significantly, in this respect, from all of the others.) There are still sound reasons for building an analytical framework upon the fact of separate nation-states: particularly the facts of separate currencies and separate governments, and, to a lesser extent, different cultures (language, tradition, taste, etc.); the classical assumptions of total factor mobility within countries and total immobility between them are not so plausible today, but they have never been more than an analytical convenience --their alteration does not in the slightest hinder orthodox analysis.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Levels of Socio-economic Development Theory

  • David Jaffee(Author)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  184 Levels of Socio-economic Development Theory growing interconnections between these still national economies. Such a process involves the increasing integration of more and more nations and economic actors into world market relationships .... A globalized economy is an ideal type distinct from that of the international economy and can be developed by contrast with it. In such a system distinct national economies are subsumed and rearti- culated into the system by international processes and transactions." In this version of the globalized economy, as many observers have argued, national economies lose their primacy as actors shaping and influencing the international system. The determinant level of analysis becomes the global level. Similarly, from different quarters, Lester Thurow has argued that the eco- nomic world is undergoing a profound transformation. He borrows some con- ceptual tools from the physical sciences—"plate tectonics" and "punctuated equilibrium"—to analyze these cataclysmic changes. Just as there are geological plates that slowly shift and alter the landscape of continents, so there are also economic plates that have been slowly shifting and reshaping the economic landscape. These shifting plates give rise to "punctuated equilibrium" (a term used in the biological sciences) that involves a sudden change in the environ- ment and, accordingly, the rules and strategies required for success and survival. Thurow (1996:8-9) argues that Shifts in technology, transportation, and communication are creating a world where anything can be made anywhere on the face of the earth. National economies fade away. A substantial disconnect arises between global business firms with a worldview and national governments that focus on the welfare of "their" voters. Countries splinter, regional trading blocs grow, the global economy becomes even more interconnected.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Introduction to International Economics

  • Dominick Salvatore(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  The United States is simply spending too much and living beyond its means—a situation that the United States needs to correct. Chapter One Introduction to the Global Economy 13 1.5 THE SUBJECT MATTER OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS International economics deals with the economic and financial interdepen- dence among nations. It analyzes the flow of goods, services, payments, monies, and people between a nation and the rest of the world, the policies directed at regulating these flows, and their effect on the nation’s welfare. This economic and financial interdependence is affected by, and in turn influences, the political, social, cultural, and military relations among nations. Balance of pay- ments A summary statement of all the international transac- tions of the residents of a nation with the rest of the world during a particu- lar period of time, usually a year. Specifically, international economics deals with international trade theory, international trade policy, the balance of payments and foreign exchange markets, and open-economy macroeconomics. International trade theory analyzes the basis for and the gains from trade. International trade policy examines the reasons for and the effects of trade restrictions. The balance of payments measures a nation’s total receipts from and the total Foreign exchange markets The framework for the exchange of one national currency for another. payments to the rest of the world, while foreign exchange markets is the institutional framework for the exchange of one national currency for others. Finally, open-economy macroeconomics deals with the mechanisms of adjustment in the balance of payments disequilibria (deficits and surpluses). More importantly, it analyzes the relationship between the internal and the external sectors of the economy of a nation, and how they are interrelated or Adjustment in the balance of pay- ments The opera- tion and effects of the mechanisms for correcting balance- of-payments disequi- libria.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Introduction to International Economics

  • Dominick Salvatore(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  The United States is simply spending too much and living beyond its means—a situation that the United States needs to correct. Chapter One Introduction to the Global Economy 11 1.5 THE SUBJECT MATTER OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS International economics deals with the economic and financial interdepen- dence among nations. It analyzes the flow of goods, services, payments, monies, and people between a nation and the rest of the world, the policies directed at regulating these flows, and their effect on the nation’s welfare. This economic and financial interdependence is affected by, and in turn influences, the political, social, cultural, and military relations among nations. Balance of pay- ments A summary statement of all the international transac- tions of the residents of a nation with the rest of the world during a particu- lar period of time, usually a year. Specifically, international economics deals with international trade theory, international trade policy, the balance of payments and foreign exchange markets, and open-economy macroeconomics. International trade theory analyzes the basis for and the gains from trade. International trade policy examines the reasons for and the effects of trade restrictions. The balance of payments measures a nation’s total receipts from and the total Foreign exchange markets The framework for the exchange of one national currency for another. payments to the rest of the world, while foreign exchange markets is the institutional framework for the exchange of one national currency for others. Finally, open-economy macroeconomics deals with the mechanisms of adjustment in the balance of payments disequilibria (deficits and surpluses). More importantly, it analyzes the relationship between the internal and the external sectors of the economy of a nation, and how they are interrelated or Adjustment in the balance of pay- ments The opera- tion and effects of the mechanisms for correcting balance- of-payments disequi- libria.

  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

  Globalization Unplugged

  • Peter Urmetzer(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • University of Toronto Press

    (Publisher)

  But that changed quickly as trade grew to 5 per cent of GWP in 1870, 8.7 per cent in 1913,13.2 per cent in 1992, and 17.2 per cent in 1998. It should be noted that in the past, as now, trade varied considerably among regions; moreover, not surprisingly, trade volume initially followed the colonization routes laid down by Western Europeans. In summary, the world economy has been global for close to two centuries now, and the groundwork for this, the proto-capitalist state, can be traced back at least another three. Given the power imbalances proposed by Wallerstein's world system, Canada, for example, is The World Economy 59 unlikely to be economically threatened by countries from the periph-ery. The degree to which economic competition from the periphery is a potential threat to Canada will be examined in detail in the next chap-ter on trade. For now, suffice it to say that from a theoretical perspec-tive the privileged position that Canada enjoys as a core country is not under siege. Being part of the core brings with it a certain amount of economic momentum, which, if anything, appears to be responsible for putting ever more distance between the core and the periphery. In short, living standards are diverging, not converging. Capitalism and the World Economy When Maddison writes about his findings on the origins of the world economy, he explicitly uses the term 'capitalist' (as in his writings on the proto-capitalist stage). For evidence he primarily relies on demograph-ics, including population growth, GDP growth, and the rate of urban-ization. But the world economy is more than the accretion of goods produced or goods traded. A defining characteristic of the world econ-omy is, after all, as Maddison himself admits, the fact that it is capitalist. But this has not always been the case, and the onset of the world econ-omy must be explained in more than quantitative terms.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Routledge Handbook of Transregional Studies

  • Matthias Middell(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The end of the Cold War in 1989–91 coincided with the declaration of Chicago school doctrines of trade liberalization, and ushered in a so-called ‘Great Convergence’ as growth rates in GDP in many developing countries surged ahead of those in developed countries, buoyed by faster population growth and by trade liberalization, allowing a ‘catch-up’ (Grinn and Korotayev 2015). The Cold War categories of ‘Second World’ and ‘Third World’ have been unmade (Escobar 1994) and replaced by categories of ‘emerging markets’ and the ‘less developed countries’. World Bank reports declare that national economies are now fragmented and polarized throughout the global economy: a new geography of poverty has emerged. In a separate development, the livelihood approach emerged within development studies, and broke with national economies as the containers for thinking about development, sustainable development, poverty, or vulnerability (De Haan 2012). For Joseph Stiglitz (2002, 2006), the regime under which world trade takes place remains unfair. The current world trade scene is in flux. New multiparty trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership promised to continue the long-term remaking of territories, authorities, and rights through globalization (Sassen 2006), but the activities of the WTO are protested at every turn. Amid rising international tensions, the US government now threatens to renegotiate NAFTA and to impose tariffs on a range of imports from trading partners.

  New geographies of trade are emerging. Between 2000 and 2010, the distribution of export power was substantially transformed (Maps 23.2 and 23.3). China’s share of world merchandise exports surged from less than 4 to 10.6 per cent, and Brazil, as well as the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East, and Africa regions also increased their shares at the expense of established industrialized countries. At the same time, the least developed countries claimed just 1.1 per cent of world exports in 2010. Global trade flows were dramatically reduced by the financial crisis of 2008/9 but rebounded, indicating unexpected volatility in world trade. In addition, there were surprising, if fleeting, increases in the relative pricing of primary commodities against manufactured goods. In these ways, the nexus between trade and economic growth, far from declaring itself through a straightforward relation with one driving the other everywhere, has taken on new and unexpected aspects.

  As this account reveals, the changing size of the world market is now understood as comprising four periods. (1) A situation of limited international trade following the realignment of trade routes caused by the conquest and colonization of the New World by Europeans was ended by the agricultural, industrial, and energy revolutions in Europe. These ushered in (2) a period of slow growth of international trade under European leadership, marked by imperialism and colonialism. This period is contrasted positively with the slowdown in trade growth from 1914 to 1945 – (3) a period of ‘de-globalization’ marked by intense interimperial rivalries. It is also contrasted negatively with (4) the period of globalization after 1945, when Western capitalism progressively opened markets and freed trade, eventually ending the Cold War barriers to global market integration. UN agencies and especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and later the WTO are given prominent roles in this last period. We are now witnessing a new international division of labour inscribed by fundamentally different forms of integration – ‘deep integration’ as geographer Peter Dicken (1998: 5) calls it – than ever before. In economic terms, growth in the world market was associated with a divergence of national economic growth rates during the second period, a set of discrepancies that remained intact during the third period, only to be overturned by apparent convergence – that is more rapid growth in developing countries than in developed economies – at the end of the 1980s. However, as a comparison of Maps 23.2 and 23.3 suggests, the emerging geographies of trade are dynamic and the general patterns for each period were not experienced everywhere. In fact, behind the world totals hides a remarkably persistent geographic fact: for around 500 years, world trade has been dominated by apparently wealthy and densely populated countries – that is to say, by the ‘triad regions’ of Europe, North America, and East and Southeast Asia along with Australasia. Within this stubborn pattern, trade has been dynamic: the rise of Europe to trade dominance was a historical anomaly, China’s recent dominance is not (Findlay and O’Rourke 2003).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Macroeconomics

  Principles and Policy

  • William Baumol, Alan Blinder(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  355 Part T HE U NITED S TATES IN THE W ORLD E CONOMY 4 18 International Trade and Comparative Advantage 19 The International Monetary System: Order or Disorder? 20 Exchange Rates and the Macroeconomy C H A P T E R S G lobalization has become a buzzword. Some people extol its virtues and view it as something to be encouraged. Others deplore its real or imagined costs and seek to stop globalization in its tracks. For example, globalization is often viewed as a threat to the livelihoods of American workers. We will examine several aspects of the globalization debate in Part 4. But love it or hate it, one thing is clear: The U.S. economy is thoroughly integrated into a broader world economy. What happens in the United States influences other countries, and events abroad reverberate back here. Trillions of dollars’ worth of goods and services—American software, Chinese toys, Japanese cars—are traded across international borders each year. A vastly larger dollar volume of financial transactions—trade in stocks, bonds, and bank deposits, for example—takes place in the global economy at lightning speed. And light-ning is the word, as the global financial panic in 2008–2009 made evident. Although we have mentioned these subjects before, Part 4 brings international factors from the wings to center stage. Chapter 18 studies the factors that underlie international trade , and Chapter 19 takes up the determination of exchange rates —the prices at which the world’s currencies are bought and sold. Then Chapter 20 integrates these international influences into our model of the macroeconomy. If you want to understand why so many Americans are worried about losing jobs to international trade, why many thoughtful observers worry that the international mon-etary system needs an overhaul, or why the financial turmoil that began here spread around the globe so quickly, read these three chapters with care. Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

  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 Nation State

  2nd Edition

  • Robert J. Holton(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Second is the emphasis on mobility, change and transformation, at the expense of any under-standing of the ways in which economic globalization is institutionalized and regulated. Third, there is the fashionable but superficial view that the nation state has been both overtaken and marginalized by globali-zation. This chapter is designed to highlight the weaknesses of such approaches. It proceeds by first identifying some of the main contours of economic globalization, with particular reference to the operations of multinational enterprises and a range of economic networks. Attention then shifts to a wider consideration of the range of institutions seek-ing to regulate and influence aspects of the global economy, the nation state included. Some Contours of Economic Globalization A major distinction is worth making at the outset between an inter-national and a trans-national economy. An international economy may be thought of in terms of exchanges between national economies carried out by economic actors and institutions based within parti-cular nations. Typically, raw materials, goods, or services produced in one country are consumed in another. The expansion of world trade between national economies is a key indicator of this process. Much of the expansion of the international economy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took this form and was further associ-ated with processes of international migration. International flows of capital, often in the form of loans from the major Western nations, were also significant. As late as the 1950s, ‘the major international flow was world trade, concentrated in raw materials, other primary products, and resource-based manufacturing’ (Sassen, 1994: 11). This system, encompassing both manufacturing and primary produc-tion, involved both the developed capitalist world and developing countries. A trans-national economy, in contrast, while incorporating inter-national trade of this kind, has additional features.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book