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For almost two centuries, starting around 1800, the history of the global economy was broadly one of divergence in average incomes. In relative terms, rich countries got even richer. There was growth in the poorer countries, too, but it was slower than rich-country growth, and the discrepancy in prosperity between rich and poor countries increased.
CommentsThis “divergence” was very pronounced in colonial times. It slowed after the 1940’s, but it was only around 1990 that an entirely new trend could be observed – convergence between average incomes in the group of rich countries and the rest of the world. From 1990 to 2010, average per capita income in the emerging and developing countries grew almost three times as fast as average income in Europe, North America, and Japan, compared to lower or, at most, equal growth rates for almost two centuries.
CommentsThis has been a revolutionary change, but will this 20-year-old trend continue? Will convergence remain rapid, or will it be a passing phase in world economic history?
Singapore has historically been seen as a canary in the coal mine of the world economy, given its extreme vulnerability to the swings of global trade.
But now, analysts at one bank have raised concern about a data point not usually seen as a threat: social and political discontent.
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The most significant driving force of any city is its people. It is crucial to have a livable environment for increasingly mobile populations, and to attract a significant workforce. More than one-third of the people in New York and London are foreign-born. Despite their astonishing growth, Asian economic powerhouses fail to reach that level of cosmopolitan culture. New York or London will continue to top the indices, but only if they ensure their strong cultural offers are unmatched and maintain open immigration policies.
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as soon as a centa-millionaire in Moscow, Beijing or São Paolo makes their fortune, the first thing they do is figure out how they can ferret away large chunks of that wealth to countries that guarantee political and personal freedoms, have sound legal systems, a favorable tax environment, good security and good schools for their kids.
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Companies must develop highly flexible business models that enable them to respond to new opportunities and threats.
They must make efforts to ensure a strong talent pipeline that will provide them with the skills and capabilities to thrive in constantly changing conditions. The recommendations in this report are by no means sure-fire prescriptions for success, but they will help companies steer safely through the murky terrain of today's global landscape.
[F]or the first time the proportion of people living in extreme poverty — on less than $1.25 a day — fell in every developing region from 2005 to 2008. And the biggest recession since the Great Depression seems not to have thrown that trend off course, preliminary data from 2010 indicate.
The progress is so drastic that the world has met the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals to cut extreme poverty in half five years before its 2015 deadline.
Little has been done to make the aviation industry pay for its negative effect on the environment. It is largely exempt from fuel tax, and it is not charged for the impact of its carbon-dioxide emissions on climate change.
Yet, according to a report published by the International Panel on Climate Change, the airline industry is responsible for 4.9% of all human-caused global warming worldwide. That figure is high, and it is growing rapidly. Airlines’ CO2 emissions rose by 11.2% from 2005 to 2010, despite a severe global recession during this period.
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European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which, as of January 1, now includes aviation. The European Union has been trying since 1997 to achieve a global agreement on aviation emissions through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Many of the same countries that signed the declaration in Moscow opposing the EU’s new carbon-pricing mechanism have also blocked the idea of a global agreement.
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The principal objection raised by those who met in Moscow is that the ETS impinges on non-EU countries’ sovereignty, because, by capping their airlines’ carbon allowances for flights to and from the EU, it imposes its rules on their turf.
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It is debatable whether English or Mandarin will dominate in South East Asia in the future. There are arguments for both on the economic front.
But culturally, there is no dispute.
Even Mandarin language enthusiasts like Singaporean businessman Mr Lee, says that English will remain popular so long as Hollywood exists.
The success of movies such as Kung Fu Panda, an American production about a Chinese animal, has caused a lot of anxiety in China, he says.
There have been many cartoons in China about pandas before, but none had reached commercial success, says Mr Lee.
"The moment Kung Fu Panda hit the cinemas everybody watched it. They bought the merchandise and they learned English."
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As China's economic power grows, Mr Lee believes that Mandarin will overtake English. In fact, he has already been seeing hints of this.
"The decline of the English language probably follows the decline of the US dollar.
"If the renminbi is becoming the next reserve currency then you have to learn Chinese."
More and more, he says, places like Brazil and China are doing business in the renminbi, not the US dollar, so there is less of a need to use English.
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Even companies in China, who prefer to operate in Chinese, are looking for managers who speak both Mandarin and English if they want to expand abroad, he says.
"They tend to act as their bridges."
So the future of English is not a question of whether it will be overtaken by Mandarin, but whether it will co-exist with Chinese, says Vohra.
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Urbanization is blamed for a wide variety of modern social ills, ranging from crime and incivility to alienation and anomie. But, by infusing us with their unique spirit and identity, our cities may, in fact, help to empower humanity to face the most difficult challenges of the twenty-first century.
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many cities have distinctive identities of which their residents are proud. Urban pride – what we call “civicism” – is a key feature of our identities today. This matters in part because cities with a clear ethos can better resist globalization’s homogenizing tendencies.
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increasing the population by opening the floodgates is the easiest way to increase GDP – and GDP figures seem to make headlines every week, highlighting this Government’s “success”, “pragmatism“ and “enlightened” economic policy.
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simply increasing the population by 1% increases GDP by 0.4%.[1] This is even though GDP per capita consequently falls by 0.6%.[2]
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globalisation index, which measures the world’s 60 biggest economies according to their “degree of globalisation relative to their GDP”, based on five equally weighted categories — openness to trade, capital movements, exchange of technology and ideas, labour mobility and cultural integration; and a survey of 1,000 senior business executives worldwide, conducted in late 2011 by the Economist Intelligence Unit. It also incorporates GDP forecasts over the next four years.
It is thus difficult to point to the number of languages that are needed, as well as to which ones are needed. There is no unique solution. It is clear today that globalisation has taken its toll, at least on some, if not on many of us. Do we need more of it by going to a unique language, whichever it is?
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Language is an essential expression of culture (and culture is, according to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, shaped by one’s native language).
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Remember Sri Lanka, and the many lives it cost because one language group (out of the two main ones) decided that its language would become “more important” than the other. The reverse is also true, and the European Union is ludicrous in its defence that 24 languages (including Croatian, spoken in the recently admitted 28th member) are official, and that all official documents should be translated into all 23 other languages. This is by the way not the case in practice, but the EU still spends over $1.4 billion every year to interpret and translate from one language into all others. Just walk in the corridors of the many buildings of the European institutions in Brussels, and you will realise that the non-native English that is spoken is hardly understandable by a native English speaker, and that English native speakers lose others when they go into somewhat deeper discussions (Wright 2007).
“The reality is that there is no more agreement on the future of the climate talks than there was when negotiators first convened two weeks ago,” he said. “Europe will continue to insist on a full-blown legally binding agreement; China and India will continue to oppose one; and the United States, while leaving the door open to an agreement that is binding for all, will continue to be unenthusiastic as well. These positions are largely rooted in incompatible views of the future, and there is no reason to believe that more talking will change them.”
the proposals to lower taxes and reduce regulations so as to keep jobs here seems to be largely an attempt to shift costs to the rest of us so that corporations can make more profits. I have no objections against corporations making money. I do, however, object against being forced to bear the costs of their profits. They need to carry their own weight and act in responsible ways. That is, pay taxes and live within the laws as the rest of us do (or are supposed to do).
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The main reason that corporations go overseas would not seem to be survival or even because they cannot make a profit in the United States. Rather, they go overseas because they think they can make even more of a profit than they can here. Given that some other countries have lower taxes, laxer regulations and far lower wages, it is easy to see why other countries can be more appealing. However, it is important to note that these corporations re not having their jobs forcible driven from the United States. Rather, the decision makers are electing to send jobs overseas so as to increase profits.
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corporations and their allies who argue that taxes must be lowered and regulations reduced so that jobs will remain here (or return) are arguing that the rest of us need to bear the cost of ensuring that corporations get the profits that they want. After all, if corporations pay less taxes then the rest of us need to pay more to make up for that shortfall. Alternatively, there would have to be spending cuts-and it is rather obvious who would bear the burden of those cuts (hint: not the corporations).
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A new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco comes to the counter-intuitive conclusion that,
Although globalization is widely recognized these days, the U.S. economy actually remains relatively closed.
While becoming an expatriate can be exciting, wealth managers say it's essential to understand legal, tax and financial issues in advance. Even when employers provide lots of assistance, it's important to know what's at stake if only to be able to judge the value of the package being offered.
Here's a look at the top areas requiring attention:
The global economy’s most striking feature nowadays is the magnitude and interconnectedness of the macro risks that it faces. The post-crisis period has produced a multi-speed world, as the major advanced economies – with the notable exception of Germany – struggle with low growth and high unemployment, while the main emerging-market economies (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Russia) have restored growth to pre-crisis levels.
Wikileaks cables recently revealed that Fruit of the Loom, Hanes and Levi’s all worked with the U.S. Embassy to block a minimum wage increase for Haitian workers–from the current rate of $3 a day to $5 a day. The Haitian Parliament passed the measure to raise the minimum wage to 62 cents an hour back in 2009, but it was eventually stymied by the U.S.-backed factory owners. The reason the U.S. was so against it [via The Nation]?
A deputy chief of mission, David E. Lindwall, said the $5 per day minimum “did not take economic reality into account” but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to “the unemployed and underpaid masses.”
A major new report from a consortium of academic researchers concludes that media piracy can't be stopped through “three strikes” Internet disconnections, Web censorship, more police powers, higher statutory damages, or tougher criminal penalties. That's because the piracy of movies, music, video games, and software is “better described as a global pricing problem.” And the only way to solve it is by changing the price.
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Over the last three years, 35 researchers contributed to the Media Piracy Project, released last week by the Social Science Research Council. Their mission was to examine media piracy in emerging economies, which account for most of the world's population, and to find out just how and why piracy operates in places like Russia, Mexico, and India.
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Their conclusion is not that citizens of such piratical societies are somehow morally deficient or opposed to paying for content. Instead, they write that “high prices for media goods, low incomes, and cheap digital technologies are the main ingredients of global media piracy. If piracy is ubiquitous in most parts of the world, it is because these conditions are ubiquitous.”
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“Emerging Markets as Partners, Not Rivals,” a fine commentary in The New York Times on Sunday by N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard prompted me to take a vacation from the dreariness of health policy to visit one of the economic profession’s intellectual triumphs: the theory that every country gains by unfettered international trade.
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That theory is less popular among noneconomists, especially politicians and unions. They wring their hands at what is called offshoring of jobs and often have no problem obstructing free trade with such barriers as tariffs or import quotas, which they deem in the national interest. (Two blogs recently offered examples of this posture.)
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Globalized Business Cares Little About Left or Right
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while US companies can go global, most US citizens can't. The result, in this age of globalization, is a growing tension between the interests of America's business leaders and the interests of much of its middle class.
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The irony is that the globalization of American business is surely a good thing -- imagine how much worse things would be if US companies hadn't figured out how to play and win on the world stage. But the equally important truth is that the twin revolutions of globalization and technological change are disproportionately benefiting the global super-class and the middle class in emerging markets like China and India -- while leaving much of America behind.
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