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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

National Policy Space: Reframing The Political Economy Of Globalization And Its Implications For National Sovereignty And Democracy, Thomas Palley Jan 2021

National Policy Space: Reframing The Political Economy Of Globalization And Its Implications For National Sovereignty And Democracy, Thomas Palley

PERI Working Papers

This paper critiques the trilemma framing of the political economy of globalization, and offers an alternative framing rooted in the construct of national policy space. Globalization causes changes in policy space which have drop-down implications for national sovereignty and democratic politics. Globalization involves choices regarding the “degree”, “type”, and “dimensions” of international economic integration. Contrary to the trilemma, the multi-faceted nature of the choices means there are no inevitable implications for sovereignty or democracy. Globalization is an intrinsically political project. To the extent it is now driving a nationalistic anti-democratic turn in politics, responsibility lies with political elites.


Is Imperialism Passé In The 21st Century?, Rohit Azad, Shouvik Chakraborty Jan 2020

Is Imperialism Passé In The 21st Century?, Rohit Azad, Shouvik Chakraborty

PERI Working Papers

Hardt and Negri in Empire argue that ”Imperialism is over.” On the contrary, others argue that not only is imperialism not dead, but its machinations have amplified during the phase of globalisation (Patnaik’s The Value of Money, Patnaik and Patnaik’s A Theory of Imperialism, John Smith’s Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century, among others). The reason for this sharp division among progressives is because of the current world scenario. On the one hand, some countries in the periphery (emerging economies) are growing faster than those in the core. On the other hand, the terms of trade has started moving in favour …


The Role Of Intangible Assets In Explaining The Investment-Profit Puzzle, Özgür Orhangazi Oct 2018

The Role Of Intangible Assets In Explaining The Investment-Profit Puzzle, Özgür Orhangazi

PERI Working Papers

Starting around the early 2000s, and especially after the 2008 crisis, the rate of capital accumulation for US nonfinancial corporations has slowed down despite relatively high profitability; indicating a weakening of the link between profitability and investment. While the literature mostly focuses on financialization and globalization as the reasons behind this slowdown, I suggest adding another layer to these explanations and argue that, in conjunction with financialization and globalization, we need to pay attention to the increased use of intangible assets by nonfinancial corporations in the last two decades. Intangibles such as brand names, trademarks, patents, and copyrights play a …


Globalization Checkmated? Political And Geopolitical Contradictions Coming Home To Roost, Thomas I. Palley Jul 2018

Globalization Checkmated? Political And Geopolitical Contradictions Coming Home To Roost, Thomas I. Palley

PERI Working Papers

The deepening of economic globalization appears to have ground to a halt and the process may even unravel a little. The sudden stop has surprised economists, whose belief in globalization has strong parallels with Fukuyama’s (1989) flawed end of history hypothesis. The paper presents a simple analytic model that shows how economic globalization has triggered political and geopolitical contradictions. For the system to work, politics within countries and geopolitics across blocs must be supportive of the system. That is missing. The model is applied to a global economic core consisting of the US, China, and the European Union. It is …


A Theory Of Economic Policy Lock-In And Lock-Out Via Hysterisis: Rethinking Economists’ Approach To Economic Policy, Thomas I. Palley Oct 2016

A Theory Of Economic Policy Lock-In And Lock-Out Via Hysterisis: Rethinking Economists’ Approach To Economic Policy, Thomas I. Palley

PERI Working Papers

This paper explores lock-in and lock-out via economic policy. It argues policy decisions may near-irrevocably change the economy’s structure, thereby changing its performance. That causes changed economic outcomes concerning distribution of wealth, income and power, which in turn induces locked-in changes in political outcomes. That is a different way of thinking about policy compared to conventional macroeconomic stabilization theory. The latter treats policy as a dial which is dialed up or down, depending on the economy’s state. Lock-in policy is illustrated by the euro, globalization, and the neoliberal policy experiment.


International Trade, Factor Mobility And The Persistence Of Cultural-Institutional Diversity, Marianna Belloc, Samuel Bowles Jan 2009

International Trade, Factor Mobility And The Persistence Of Cultural-Institutional Diversity, Marianna Belloc, Samuel Bowles

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage, as long as these differences are not eliminated by trade. We provide an evolutionary model of endogenous preferences and institutions under autarchy, trade and factor mobility in which multiple asymptotically stable cultural-institutional conventions may exist, among which transitions may occur as a result of decentralized and un-coordinated actions of employers or employees. We show that: i) specialization and trade may arise and enhance welfare even when the countries are identical …


Free To Move: Migration, Tax Competition And Redistribution, Woojin Lee Jan 2005

Free To Move: Migration, Tax Competition And Redistribution, Woojin Lee

Economics Department Working Paper Series

We study a model of tax competition between two countries when both skilled and unskilled workers make their migration decisions simultaneously and wages are endogenously determined. If both factors of production are allowed to migrate freely and when the demand for skilled labor is not so elastic, the problem typically predicted in the literature of tax competition that increased mobility of production factors will pose a severe threat to redistribution possibility is less acute than it might first appear. The equilibrium tax rate can be not only positive but also increasing in the degree of mobility of unskilled workers. This …


Green And Brown? Globalization And The Environment, James K. Boyce Jan 2004

Green And Brown? Globalization And The Environment, James K. Boyce

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Globalization – viewed as a process of economic integration that embraces governance as well as markets – could lead to worldwide convergence toward higher or lower environmental quality, or to environmental polarization in which the ‘greening’ of the global North is accompanied by the ‘browning’ of the global South. The outcome will not be dictated by an inexorable logic. Rather it will depend on how the opportunities created by globalization alter balances of power within countries and among them.


Economic Performance In Post-Crisis Korea: A Critical Perspective On Neoliberal Restructuring, James Crotty, Kang-Kook Lee Jan 2001

Economic Performance In Post-Crisis Korea: A Critical Perspective On Neoliberal Restructuring, James Crotty, Kang-Kook Lee

PERI Working Papers

This paper evaluates the neoliberal economic restructuring process implemented in Korea following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. We first argue that the austerity macroeconomic policy of late 1997 and early 1998 was the main cause of the economic collapse in 1998, and that the decision of the IMF and President Kim Dae Jung to impose a radical neoliberal transformation of financial markets and large industrial firms in the depressed conditions of 1998, though defensible on political grounds, made the failure of these reforms virtually inevitable. A detailed analysis of the macro economy, labor markets, financial markets, and nonfinancial firms in …


Globalization And Local Economic Development: Intersections Between The Industrial Economy And Regional Industrial Planning, Center For Economic Development Jan 1997

Globalization And Local Economic Development: Intersections Between The Industrial Economy And Regional Industrial Planning, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

By now it is widely accepted that we live in a global economy. We are more likely to buy goods from Korea than Kansas, we may have pension funds invested in companies on the Tokyo stock market as well as New York's, and we may work for a corporation with headquarters in Brussels rather than Boston. But despite our sense of participating in a world economy, it is difficult to understand how that world's economy intersects with the national or local economies with which we are more familiar. This is particularly significant for the regional economic development planner. Despite the …