Trouble for Workers and the Poor: Economic Globalization and the Reshaping of American Politics
In recent decades in the United States, even as inequalities of income and wealth have greatly increased, redistributive programs have tended to be curtailed. In some cases, government policies have begun to exacerbate, rather than moderate, inequality. Since this has occurred not only under the Republican Reagan and Bush administrations, but also in the Democratic Carter and Clinton administrations, it suggests that the politics of redistribution may have been fundamentally transformed. Moreover, evidence from aborad indicates that there has been a shift away from redistributive policies throughout the advanced industrial world. The implications of this trend and the prognosis for the future depend upon its precise political causes. To the extent that it has resulted from changes in contingent political forces -- especially increases in the political power of capital and concomitant losses of power by labor, together with much stronger anti-redistributive stands by business -- one can imagine a revival of redistribution, based on increased organization, mobilization, and political struggle by working people and the poor. Some signs of such struggle have in fact appeared. To the extent that the trend is structural, however -- based on changed technology and such international economic factors as lower trade barriers, extensive immigration, lower transportation and communication costs, and increased capital mobility -- the heightened power of capital and weakness of labor are likely to persist for a long time to come. Moreover, economic globalization may be making it more and more difficult for governments to redistribute income without counterproductive effects such as capital flight, loss of export competitiveness, and increased immigration of low-income people. Thus economic globalization may gravely impair, or even eliminate, the capacity -- as well as the will -- of nation-states to redistribute income or wealth within their boundaries. If this is so, remedies will be hard to come by. The logic of economic globalization implies that only global remedies will work. It is possible that only worldwide organization by workers, or universally applicable treaties and agreements, could effectively check (let alone reverse) increases in income inequality in advanced industrial countries. But such solutions would arouse intense political opposition and would probably face conflicts of interest between workers in rich and poor countries.
Understanding the Political Implications of Financial Internationalization in Emerging Market Countries
Summary The author explores the impact of financial internationalization on prospects for sustainable democratic developing in non-OECD countries. Existing arguments rest on changes in relative factor scarcity drawing from neoliberal trade theory, on governments' decreasing ability to tax increasingly mobile capital, on volatility of flows and on the rising intensity of the “market as prison” phenomenon first identified by Lindblom in a domestic context. The causal logic implied in these different arguments is not consistent with evidence on the determinants of North to South financial flows. A survey of empirical literature on capital flows, organized by a simplified capital asset pricing model, suggests that to the extent international investors in developing countries act rationally, they respond to international liquidity and global interest rates more than the specific actions of host country policy makers. Investor herding and poor information also weaken the chains that supposedly bind Third World governments in an increasingly internationalized world. Financial internationalization does constrain capital-poor countries, but not in the ways alluded to in existing literature. The author concludes by stipulating several hypotheses about the causal link between financial internationalization and social democracy in emerging market countries that are consistent with empirical evidence on the determinants of North to South capital flows.
An Optimization Approach to Occupant Safety and Fuel Economy in Vehicle Design
1. Abstract A major challenge in automotive design is the creation of safe vehicles with minimal environmental impact. This study presents a modeling framework for evaluating and optimizing body designs for improved occupant safety and fuel efficiency. Vehicle body mass is considered as the main link between safety and sustainability. The modeling framework includes frontal crash energy absorption, restraint system design and fuel economy. Preliminary results indicate a Pareto-optimal curve between safety and sustainability may exist when other factors are not taken into account. A more complete modeling framework that includes more sophisticated sustainability and safety metrics, cost and other market considerations, is suggested in order to support better design and regulatory decisions. 2. Keywords: Automotive body structures, fuel economy, occupant safety, optimal vehicle design, restraint systems