Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
CULTURE, VALUES, AND ETHICS IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY
As part of my continuing professional development this summer I will be completing 3 online graduate classes - one of which is BU 650 CULTURE, VALUES, AND ETHICS IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY. My first assignment in this class is a summary of Social Responsibility in a Global Economy.
The following sources will be consulted:
Why Would Corporations Behave in Socially Responsible Ways? An Institutional Theory of Corporate Social Responsibility
John L. Campbell
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~socy/pdfs/Why%20Would%20Corporations%20Behave%20Badly.pdf
Beyond corporate social responsibility:
minnows, mammoths and markets
Deborah Doane*
New Economics Foundation, 3 Jonathan Street, London SE11 5NH, UK
Available online 30 July 2004
Futures
Volume 37, Issues 2-3,Pages 215-229
http://www.corporation2020.org/documents/Resources/Doane_CSR.pdf
Publication: The Journal of Corporate Citizenship
Publication Date: 22-MAR-02
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Ruggie, John Gerard
http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/content/pdfs/jcc05rugg.pdf
Article Excerpt
Under the leadership of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the United Nations has played an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility as one means to respond to the challenges of globalisation. The Global Compact has been Annan's major initiative in this domain. It has explicitly adopted a learning approach to inducing corporate change, as opposed to a regulatory approach; and it comprises a network form of organisation, as opposed to the traditional hierarchic/bureaucratic form. These distinctive (and, for the UN, unusual) features lead the Compact's critics to seriously underestimate its potential, while its supporters may hold excessive expectations of what it can deliver. Because organisational issues of this sort will continue to confront the search for viable global governance mechanisms for many years ahead, this paper spells out both the advantages but also the inherent limitations of the `learning networks' approach.
**********
UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN, THE UNITED Nations has played an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility as one means to respond to the challenges of globalisation. `You do not need to wait for governments to pass new laws,' Mr Annan has said to business groups. `You can and should act now, in your own self-interest. The sustainability of globalisation is at stake.'
The Global Compact has been Annan's major initiative in this domain. It has attracted considerable acclaim in the world's press. In the United States, it was praised editorially by the venerable Washington Post while the Christian Science Monitor lauded it as Annan's `most creative reinvention' yet of the United Nations. At the same time, the Global Compact has generated suspicion and in some instances sharp criticism in parts of the NGO (non-governmental organisation) community and from various anti-globalisation activists. Part of the difference is explained by differing attitudes towards globalisation. Thus, what the mainstream press views as an innovative practical response to some of its challenges, critics decry as `bluewash': providing an opportunity for the private sector to drape itself in the UN flag without really mending its ways. (1)
But even more fundamental issues are at stake. The Global Compact has explicitly adopted a learning approach to inducing corporate change, as opposed to a regulatory approach; and it comprises a network form of organisation, as opposed to the traditional hierarchic/bureaucratic form. These distinctive (and, for the UN, unusual) features lead the Compact's critics to seriously underestimate its potential, while its supporters may hold excessive expectations of what it can deliver.
Because organisational issues of this sort will continue to confront the search for viable global governance mechanisms for many years ahead, it is worth examining the Global Compact more closely as a case of things to come, spelling out both its advantages and its inherent limitations.
Below, I describe the Compact's organisational forms and the rationale behind them. But, first, I briefly place the current debates in their broader historical context.
Tina redux?
The globalisation mantra in corporate circles, at least until very recently, was the so-called `Tina' hypothesis: `There Is No Alternative'. But there is: Tina may prevail in the long run, but the road from here to there can be unacceptably rough.
History doesn't repeat itself; only historians do. But there is still great merit in the dictum that those who refuse to learn from the past may be condemned to repeat its errors. That is certainly true of globalisation and its consequences. Let us begin with some basic facts.
The speed and costs of global communications are plummeting to a fraction of what they were a decade earlier. The Internet? No, the laying of the transatlantic cables in 1866, which reduced the time it took to communicate between London and New York by 99.9%, from a week to a matter of minutes.
The ease of global transport is increasing by orders of magnitude. The latest Boeing or Airbus? No, the opening of the first Alpine tunnels, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
Foreign trade accounts for a third or more of national product. Japan in the 1980s? No, Britain a century earlier. Emerging economies booming and global markets integrating, thanks to massive flows of foreign investment? Been there, done that, too, as European capital built railroads in the US, Canada, Australia and Argentina more than a century ago, and as raw materials, beef and agricultural products were shipped back to feed the industrial machines, and the stomachs, of Europe.
The era from 1850 to 1910 was the first `golden age' of globalisation. Travellers required no passports or visas and capital flowed freely. Even more impressive, 60 million people left Europe between 1850 and 1914 to seek new economic opportunities and political...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
The following sources will be consulted:
| The Academy of Management Review (AMR) | ||
| Issue: | Volume 32, Number 3 / 2007 | |
| Pages: | 946 - 967 | |
John L. Campbell
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~socy/pdfs/Why%20Would%20Corporations%20Behave%20Badly.pdf
Beyond corporate social responsibility:
minnows, mammoths and markets
Deborah Doane*
New Economics Foundation, 3 Jonathan Street, London SE11 5NH, UK
Available online 30 July 2004
Futures
Volume 37, Issues 2-3,Pages 215-229
http://www.corporation2020.org/documents/Resources/Doane_CSR.pdf
Publication: The Journal of Corporate Citizenship
Publication Date: 22-MAR-02
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Ruggie, John Gerard
http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/content/pdfs/jcc05rugg.pdf
Article Excerpt
Under the leadership of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the United Nations has played an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility as one means to respond to the challenges of globalisation. The Global Compact has been Annan's major initiative in this domain. It has explicitly adopted a learning approach to inducing corporate change, as opposed to a regulatory approach; and it comprises a network form of organisation, as opposed to the traditional hierarchic/bureaucratic form. These distinctive (and, for the UN, unusual) features lead the Compact's critics to seriously underestimate its potential, while its supporters may hold excessive expectations of what it can deliver. Because organisational issues of this sort will continue to confront the search for viable global governance mechanisms for many years ahead, this paper spells out both the advantages but also the inherent limitations of the `learning networks' approach.
**********
UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN, THE UNITED Nations has played an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility as one means to respond to the challenges of globalisation. `You do not need to wait for governments to pass new laws,' Mr Annan has said to business groups. `You can and should act now, in your own self-interest. The sustainability of globalisation is at stake.'
The Global Compact has been Annan's major initiative in this domain. It has attracted considerable acclaim in the world's press. In the United States, it was praised editorially by the venerable Washington Post while the Christian Science Monitor lauded it as Annan's `most creative reinvention' yet of the United Nations. At the same time, the Global Compact has generated suspicion and in some instances sharp criticism in parts of the NGO (non-governmental organisation) community and from various anti-globalisation activists. Part of the difference is explained by differing attitudes towards globalisation. Thus, what the mainstream press views as an innovative practical response to some of its challenges, critics decry as `bluewash': providing an opportunity for the private sector to drape itself in the UN flag without really mending its ways. (1)
But even more fundamental issues are at stake. The Global Compact has explicitly adopted a learning approach to inducing corporate change, as opposed to a regulatory approach; and it comprises a network form of organisation, as opposed to the traditional hierarchic/bureaucratic form. These distinctive (and, for the UN, unusual) features lead the Compact's critics to seriously underestimate its potential, while its supporters may hold excessive expectations of what it can deliver.
Because organisational issues of this sort will continue to confront the search for viable global governance mechanisms for many years ahead, it is worth examining the Global Compact more closely as a case of things to come, spelling out both its advantages and its inherent limitations.
Below, I describe the Compact's organisational forms and the rationale behind them. But, first, I briefly place the current debates in their broader historical context.
Tina redux?
The globalisation mantra in corporate circles, at least until very recently, was the so-called `Tina' hypothesis: `There Is No Alternative'. But there is: Tina may prevail in the long run, but the road from here to there can be unacceptably rough.
History doesn't repeat itself; only historians do. But there is still great merit in the dictum that those who refuse to learn from the past may be condemned to repeat its errors. That is certainly true of globalisation and its consequences. Let us begin with some basic facts.
The speed and costs of global communications are plummeting to a fraction of what they were a decade earlier. The Internet? No, the laying of the transatlantic cables in 1866, which reduced the time it took to communicate between London and New York by 99.9%, from a week to a matter of minutes.
The ease of global transport is increasing by orders of magnitude. The latest Boeing or Airbus? No, the opening of the first Alpine tunnels, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
Foreign trade accounts for a third or more of national product. Japan in the 1980s? No, Britain a century earlier. Emerging economies booming and global markets integrating, thanks to massive flows of foreign investment? Been there, done that, too, as European capital built railroads in the US, Canada, Australia and Argentina more than a century ago, and as raw materials, beef and agricultural products were shipped back to feed the industrial machines, and the stomachs, of Europe.
The era from 1850 to 1910 was the first `golden age' of globalisation. Travellers required no passports or visas and capital flowed freely. Even more impressive, 60 million people left Europe between 1850 and 1914 to seek new economic opportunities and political...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
Monday, April 28, 2008
International Economics and Trade
As part of my continuing professional development this summer I will be completing 3 online graduate classes - one of which is BU 631 International Economics and Trade. My first assignment in this class is a summary of Ricardo's Comparative Advantage.
David Ricardo in the preface to On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation to writes:
"The real price of every thing," says Adam Smith, "what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it, or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people." (http://www.econlib.org/library/Ricardo/ricP.html)
Ricardo goes on to develop one of the more profound contributions to social thought in his explication of value and the basis of exchange or the “toil and trouble which he can save to himself,” which is the famous comparative advantage. In chapter 7, Ricardo asserts the advantages of free trade in both the international and domestic arenas and them provides his numerical example, frequently included in introductory textbooks.
Analysis of comparative advantage over at 26econ
Other Resources
Three Nobel Winners on the US economy
CNBC had three Nobel winners on Friday morn -- Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Engle and Edmund Phelps -- discussing Housing, Credit, and the state of the US economy. It was terrific television, and showed how good the medium can be when it sets its mind on it.
Source:
Where's the Economy Going? Nobel Winners Weigh In
CNBC.com 25 Apr 2008
http://www.cnbc.com/id/24313079/site/14081545
Source:
Where's the Economy Going? Nobel Winners Weigh In
CNBC.com 25 Apr 2008
http://www.cnbc.com/id/24313079/site/14081545
Larry Summers agrees with Jagdish Bhagwati
In the vein of Jagdish Bhagwati's book - In Defense of Globalization, Larry Summers writes today in the Financial Times:
America needs to make a new case for trade
By Lawrence Summers
While the financial crisis dominates current discussion on the US economy, questions regarding America’s future approach to globalisation are looming increasingly large.
Since the end of the second world war, American economic policy has supported an integrated global economy, stimulating development in poor countries, particularly in Asia, at unprecedented rates. Yet America’s commitment to internationalist economic policy is ever more in doubt. Even before the significant increases in unemployment likely in the months ahead, the indicators are all disturbing. Presidential candidates attack the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Colombian free trade agreement languishes. There are increasing attacks on foreign investment in the US, not to mention growing support for restrictive immigration policies.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c185e3a-1478-11dd-a741-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
America needs to make a new case for trade
By Lawrence Summers
While the financial crisis dominates current discussion on the US economy, questions regarding America’s future approach to globalisation are looming increasingly large.
Since the end of the second world war, American economic policy has supported an integrated global economy, stimulating development in poor countries, particularly in Asia, at unprecedented rates. Yet America’s commitment to internationalist economic policy is ever more in doubt. Even before the significant increases in unemployment likely in the months ahead, the indicators are all disturbing. Presidential candidates attack the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Colombian free trade agreement languishes. There are increasing attacks on foreign investment in the US, not to mention growing support for restrictive immigration policies.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c185e3a-1478-11dd-a741-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Freer Trade Could Fill the World’s Rice Bowl
In today's NY Times:
The damage that trade restrictions cause is probably most evident in the case of rice. Although rice is the major foodstuff for about half of the world, it is highly protected and regulated. Only about 5 to 7 percent of the world’s rice production is traded across borders; that’s unusually low for an agricultural commodity.
RISING food prices mean hunger for millions and also political unrest, as has already been seen in Haiti, Egypt and Ivory Coast. Yes, more expensive energy and bad weather are partly at fault, but the real question is why adjustment hasn’t been easier. A big problem is that the world doesn’t have enough trade in foodstuffs.
The damage that trade restrictions cause is probably most evident in the case of rice. Although rice is the major foodstuff for about half of the world, it is highly protected and regulated. Only about 5 to 7 percent of the world’s rice production is traded across borders; that’s unusually low for an agricultural commodity.
Trade and the impact of change
In preparation for the joint FTE/Liberty Fund conference - Free Trade, Globalization, and Economic Development I have been rereading Dr. Rivoli's The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy 
in which she cites her colleague:
"Does the world really need another book about globalization?" Jagdish Bhagwati asks in the introduction to his recent book on the topic.
The answer, in my view, is yes and in addition to Rivoli's book, we are reading Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization.
Rivoli writes in the preface to her book:
Later writers -- perhaps most artfully Peter Dougherty -- have argued instead that "Economics is part of a larger civilizing project," in which markets depend for their very survival on various forms of the backlash. My T-shirt's story comes down on Dougherty's side: Neither the market nor the backlash alone presents much hope for the poor the world over who farm cotton or stitch T-shirts together, but in the unintentional conspiracy between the two sides there is promise.
My T-shirt's life suggests, however, that the importance of markets might be overstated by both globalizers and critics. While my T-shirt's life story is certainly influenced by competitive economic markets, the key events in the T-shirt's life are less about competitive markets than they are about politics, history, and creative maneuvers to avoid markets. Even those who laud the effects of highly competitive markets are loathe to experience them personally, so the winners at various stages of my T-shirt's life are adept not so much at competing in markets but at avoiding them. The effects of these avoidance maneuvers can have more damaging effects on the poor and powerless than market competition itself. In short, my T-shirt's story has turned out to be less about markets than I would have predicted, and more about the historical and political webs of intrigue in which the markets are embedded. In peeling the onion of my T-shirt's life -- especially as it relates to current debates -- I kept being led back to history and politics.
in which she cites her colleague:"Does the world really need another book about globalization?" Jagdish Bhagwati asks in the introduction to his recent book on the topic.
The answer, in my view, is yes and in addition to Rivoli's book, we are reading Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization.
Rivoli writes in the preface to her book:
Later writers -- perhaps most artfully Peter Dougherty -- have argued instead that "Economics is part of a larger civilizing project," in which markets depend for their very survival on various forms of the backlash. My T-shirt's story comes down on Dougherty's side: Neither the market nor the backlash alone presents much hope for the poor the world over who farm cotton or stitch T-shirts together, but in the unintentional conspiracy between the two sides there is promise.
My T-shirt's life suggests, however, that the importance of markets might be overstated by both globalizers and critics. While my T-shirt's life story is certainly influenced by competitive economic markets, the key events in the T-shirt's life are less about competitive markets than they are about politics, history, and creative maneuvers to avoid markets. Even those who laud the effects of highly competitive markets are loathe to experience them personally, so the winners at various stages of my T-shirt's life are adept not so much at competing in markets but at avoiding them. The effects of these avoidance maneuvers can have more damaging effects on the poor and powerless than market competition itself. In short, my T-shirt's story has turned out to be less about markets than I would have predicted, and more about the historical and political webs of intrigue in which the markets are embedded. In peeling the onion of my T-shirt's life -- especially as it relates to current debates -- I kept being led back to history and politics.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
US economy - recession?
The profession and the media continues to debate the direction of the US economy. The following link presents the views of 3 Nobel winners and their divergent views.
CNBC - Where's the Economy Going? Nobel Winners Weigh In
CNBC - Where's the Economy Going? Nobel Winners Weigh In
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
FTE Trustee Meeting
On Friday April 11, 2008 I attended the FTE Trustee meeting as an invited guest to overview online learning and the FTE online courses. Relevant to that discussion are the following:
New Answers for E Learning - US News and World Report
Number of Students Taking Online Classes Grows - USA Today
Sloan Report - Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning
Course Management Systems
Blog example
EDSUO blog
EDSUO wiki
New Answers for E Learning - US News and World Report
Number of Students Taking Online Classes Grows - USA Today
Sloan Report - Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning
Course Management Systems
Blog example
EDSUO blog
EDSUO wiki
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Economics of development
From Dani Rodrik's blog a reference to 4 excellent essays -
What should the World Bank know and think about governance?
You can read the four short essays on this question produced by Daron Acemoglu, Frank Fukuyama, Doug North, and myself here. There is much convergence of views in these essays, but also some disagreements. Daron and I disagree in particular on two issues: whether industrial policy makes sense or not (me: yes, Daron: no) and whether institutional reform should adopt a best-practice approach or not (me: no, Daron: yes). I take Doug North's views on the latter question to be much closer to mine than to Daron's--or at least they appeared to be so in the discussion following the presentations.
What should the World Bank know and think about governance?
You can read the four short essays on this question produced by Daron Acemoglu, Frank Fukuyama, Doug North, and myself here. There is much convergence of views in these essays, but also some disagreements. Daron and I disagree in particular on two issues: whether industrial policy makes sense or not (me: yes, Daron: no) and whether institutional reform should adopt a best-practice approach or not (me: no, Daron: yes). I take Doug North's views on the latter question to be much closer to mine than to Daron's--or at least they appeared to be so in the discussion following the presentations.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Capitalism, Morality, and Liberty
I will attend the Liberty Fund colloquium in Denver on “Capitalism, Morality, and Liberty” on April 3-6, 2008.
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