Title: Contemporary Phase of Globalization: Does It Have a Serious Downside?
Abstract: Abstract There are many who logically or illogically regard the contemporary phase of economic globalization as a negative, harmful, destructive, marginalizing and malevolent influence. Notwithstanding its positive welfare implications, it has been a serious source of national, regional and global economic problems for many economies, both developing and advance industrial ones. Partial blame for the fall 2008 meltdown of the global financial market does justly go to globalization. It is also blamed for uneven distribution of income within and between countries. Consequently global policy environment has turned globalization-unfriendly. Without negating the affirmative aspects of globalization and its welfare-enhancing contributions, this article focuses on the negative aspects of the contemporary phase of economic globalization. Keywords: Contemporary globalizationmalevolent economic forceuneven income distributionsinking real wagesfinancial crises Notes 1. Reference here is to Lou Dobb's 7 o'clock news on the CNN. 2. For a literature survey, see Nissanke and Thorbecke (Citation2005). 3. In May 2008, after staying at their high perch, grain prices declined from their peak levels. 4. Nobel Prize winning economist and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank, Joseph E. Stiglitz, is one such academic analyst. 5. See Stiglitz (Citation2005) also. 6. For instance, several important European countries, including France, voted against the EU's constitutional treaty. Mittal Steel's successful bid to acquire Arcelor was initially blocked by the French and Luxembourg governments. 7. After the crucial Group-of-Four (G-4) meetings of June 2007 in Potsdam, Germany, when multilateral convergence seemed tantalizingly close because components of an interim agreement was identified, which was to become a launching pad for the rest of the Doha agreement. The negotiations broke down once again, disarray in the Doha Round continued. There was a discernible rise in protectionist sentiment in the industrial economy after this point (Das, Citation2008). This was taken as an indicator of the reversal of the current phase of globalization. 8. This survey was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan, in collaboration with the Program on International Policy Attitude (PIPA) at the University of Maryland in January 2008. See “Widespread Unease about Economy and Globalization”. Available at http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btglobalizationtradeera/446.php?lb=btgl&pnt=446&nid=&id= (accessed 14 June 2008). Washington DC. World Public Opinion. Posted on 7 February 2008. 9. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was established in 1981. Its members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 10. This G-7 meeting was hosted by the US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke in Washington DC, on 22 October. Aside from the US, members of the G-7 include Japan, Germany, France, UK, Italy and Canada. 11. Several noted scholars including Kenneth Rogoff, Patrick Mulloy and Edwin Truman participated in these hearings. Christopher Cox, the Chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission, expressed his concern regarding the operations of the SWFs in a speech at the Harvard University on 24 October 2007. 12. John Williamson had reasonably argued that the set of policy reforms that would serve the developing economies, particularly those of Latin America, well should encompass the following 10 propositions: emphasis on fiscal discipline, a redirection of public expenditure priorities toward fields offering both high economic returns and the potential to improve income distribution, such as primary health care, primary education, and infrastructure, tax reform (to lower marginal rates and broaden the tax base), interest rate liberalization, a competitive exchange rate, trade liberalization, liberalization of FDI inflows, privatization, deregulation (in the sense of abolishing barriers to entry and exit) and secure property rights. Its emphasis was on deregulated markets. 13. Nobel Prize winning economist and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank, Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, is one such famous academic analyst. 14. The Gini coefficient can assume any value between zero and one (or 0% to 100%). The closer the value is to one (or 100%), the more unequal is the distribution. This implies that only a small section of society posses an overwhelmingly large proportion of income. 15. The source of these statistical data is the World Investment Prospects to 2011 (The Economist Intelligence Unit, Citation2007).
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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