Financing Education in Europe: The Globalization Perspective

This paper examines the role of globalization on public spending on education in Europe. With the implementation of the Bologna process, the changes taking place in the educational structure in Europe have highlighted the importance of public education expenditures. Taking into account the effects of trade, income, and socio‐demographic factors, we study the impact of globalization on public education expenditure at preprimary, primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions using a panel data model for 25 EU countries for the 1998–2010 period. Our findings with different indices of globalization depict a positive effect on education financing. The use of legal and institutional variables, the inclusion of the crisis and euro dummies, and further control variables do not alter our main findings. The Bologna dummy variable is not found to have a significant effect on public education financing, indicating that the integration goals under this process have not translated into increasing levels of public expenditure for education.     

Unhealthy Accumulation: The Globalization of Health Care Privatization

The scepticism of economists—mainstream and heterodox—towards "new economy" ideas goes beyond the indignation of long-established traditions being told to rewrite their basic rules. With its emphasis on trade through interand intra-corporate networks, the "new economy" presents a model of exchange very different from that used by mainstream (neoclassical) economics. Its assurance of equality within the network, like neoclassical economists' equality before the market, is attained only by ignoring the power imbalances built into the new network forms. The enhanced "consumer sovereignty" associated with recent technological change, deregulation and trade integration is shown to be just as open to market power abuses as were consumers in the traditional economy. Rather than representing a break with the past, recent structural changes in highincome economies are argued to continue a long-running trend for consumption and production to be spatially and temporally separated, so that the individual pleasures of the first can counterbalance the collective pressures of the second. Producers remain in control of most supply chains, and the intensification and deskilling of consumption reinforces rather than reverses these same processes in production, by promoting longer work hours and closer pay-performance links.     

The Social Economics of Globalization

There is general agreement on the moral values that globalization should serve. These are widespread prosperity and economic growth, ecological sustainability, and cultural diversity. Proponents believe that neoliberal globalization will achieve these goals, while the critics believe that globalization undermines them. An institutionalist theory that recognizes the reality of economic power and choice posits that globalization enhances the power of the business sector at the expense of the government and moral–cultural sectors. Policies for redressing this imbalance are discussed.

The Social Economics of Globalization

There is general agreement on the moral values that globalization should serve. These are widespread prosperity and economic growth, ecological sustainability, and cultural diversity. Proponents believe that neoliberal globalization will achieve these goals, while the critics believe that globalization undermines them. An institutionalist theory that recognizes the reality of economic power and choice posits that globalization enhances the power of the business sector at the expense of the government and moral–cultural sectors. Policies for redressing this imbalance are discussed.     

Globalization: A Critical Introduction

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were endorsed unanimously by all 189 UN member states and emerged as one of the central pillars of the global fight against poverty. However, the changes the MDGs brought about have been mixed at best. Though there are some notable successes, the MDGs have failed to bring about a substantial shift towards tackling global poverty and have had only a weak impact on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Several reasons are put forward for this failure: the continuing lack of political concern with poverty; the lack of a social movement behind the MDGs; and the lack of a well formed epistemic community for the MDGs to tie into. However, this paper argues that it would be wrong to dismiss the MDGs as a complete failure. The MDG project should instead be seen in a long term context as having played a role in changing international values and contributed to the emergence of an international norm that sees poverty in an affluent world as being morally unacceptable.     

经济全球化趋势下服务业的特点及中国的对策

本文阐述了经济全球化进程逐渐加快成为世界经济发展主流条件下 ,全球服务业发展的新趋势 ,分析了中国服务业发展存在的问题 ,中国服务业国际化的战略意义 ,提出了中国服务业国际化的路径选择。     

经济全球化过程中发展中国家面临的挑战

20世纪末以来，经济全球化的速度明显加快。由于经济全球化的发展进程是在资本主义主导之下进行的，它是资本主义生产方式在世界范围的进一步延伸，因此，广大发展中国家在这一过程中处于相对不利的地位，面临较大的困难与挑战。     

经济全球化中的政治经济学

经济全球化进程伴随着国际规则制度的更新与变迁,发达国家主导了便于化国际规则,承担了较少的成本,获得了较多利益,发达国家内部、发达国家与发展中国家之间在为争夺新全球化规则主导权和进入权而进行斗争。以科技为中心的经济全球化进程中出出了上游产业控制下游产业,人力资源取代自然资源,超级国际垄断资本挑战民族资本等特征,使原有的富国剥削穷国的国际政治经济学的基本判断发生了变化,世界大规模战争的诱发因素被遏制,富国与穷国之间的发展差距拉大成为新的国际不稳定因素。中国应正确评价自己的国际地位,正视经济全球化现实,参与国际合作,在新国际秩序规则构建中发挥自己的影响力。     

美国经济的全球化

关于美国经济是否融入整个世界经济体系的争论似乎已日益激烈，但有关这一问题的深入探讨就目前而言，还未真正提升到一定的高度。事实上，真正意义上的全球经济一体化还未形成，美国经济在很大程度上还维持着其传统的独立经济体系。但大多数人，尤其是美国民众普遍认为经济全球化可能会给美国经济带来负面影响。这直接导致了在西雅图召开的世界贸易组织会议，由于遭到反对全球经济一体化团体的强烈抗议而被迫中止。克林顿政府有关美国加快就北美自由贸易协议扩张事宜进行谈判的请求，也遭到了国会的拒绝。这预示着美国经济开始背离国际贸易自由化的轨道，也增加了北美自由贸易协议的扩张及美国参与WTO多边贸易谈判的难度。在此，笔者对这一问题进行理论的探讨，以纠正某些对美国经济全球化的不正确认识。     

The Social Economics of Neoliberal Globalization

The recent period of intensive and extensive development of global economic integration, or globalization, has reached a crossroads. The regime of the neoliberal Great Capitalist Restoration is not sustainable and fundamental governance changes must be made. This paper adds perspective to the choices that must be made at this critical juncture of the global social economy by applying the master concepts of Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction and Polanyi’s Protective Response.

论生态危机全球化

生态危机全球化以经济全球化为基础,它与经济危机一样植根于资本主义生产方式,且伴随着新自由市场资本主义在全球的扩展,加速从发达资本主义国家向发展中国家扩散、转移.生态危机全球化具有全球市场向度、国际资本的逻辑向度和世界公害性特征,其发生和治理不以个别国际行为主体的意志为转移.生态危机全球化的全球治理定位有赖于全球市场和国际资本投资的生态化转型.     

The Wind of the Hundred Days: How Washington Mismanaged Globalization

Book Reviewed
by Michael J. Greenwood and John M. McDowell Kalamazoo, Michigan: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1999, pp. xii, 295.
Book Reviewed
by Jagdish Bhagwati Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, 383 pp.     

Globalization,decentralization and income inequality: The case of China

The current study examines the effect of trade liberalization and expansion of foreign direct investment inflows, together with the pursuit of decentralization, on China's income inequality between 1985 and 2007. As the degrees of integration of the concerned variables are revealed to be different,Stock and Watson (1993) dynamic ordinary least squares method is employed to reveal the cointegrating relationship. The empirical evidence shows that trade liberalization has led to the higher income inequality, discrediting the Stolper–Samuelson theorem in international trade. There is mixed evidence relating to the effect of FDI inflows on income inequality. Decentralization is shown not to influence it.     

经济全球化与资本全球化

经济全球化是人本质发展的内在要求,是人类社会发展的必然趋势。在漫长的经济全球化进程中,经济全球化具有不同的实现机制。在资本主义阶段,资本主义生产方式是经济全球化的实现机制。资本全球化不仅具有经济全球化的一般性质,而且具有资本的特殊属性。资本全球化是当今经济全球化的具体实现形式。     

The Property System in Austrian Economics: Ronald Coase's Contribution

This paper argues that contrary to Roy Cordato's claim, Ronald Coase's work on the problem of social cost is an important contribution to Austrian economics. Coase identified a criterion that can be used to establish initial legal rights to control actions that have external effects. In other words, he discovered a criterion that, in some cases, can be directly applied to help establish a property system when there is none. The criterion also helps a government adapt, or maintain, a property system in light of continuing changes that are characteristic of the entrepreneur economy. Cordato's anti-state ethical economics, which he used to criticize Coase, is a deviation from the century-old tradition of Austrian economics. Menger, Mises and Hayek saw economics as a body of logical knowledge that is value free. In addition they recognized a role for government in defining legal rights and in maintaining the property system in light of changing conditions. Accordingly, it is wrong to invoke Austrian economics, properly understood, to criticize this aspect of Coase's work. In this paper, I argue that Cordato has followed a deviant and troubling path by trying to construct an Austrian economics based on ethics, that he has failed to understand that a changeable property system is a prerequisite for the market economy, and that he has correspondingly failed to recognize Coase's contribution to the problem of how to maintain the property system in light of continuing change.     

The Challenge of Market Power under Globalization

The legacy of Adam Smith leads to a false confidence on the optimality of laissez faire policies for the global market economy. Instead, the polarized character of current globalization deeply affects both developed and underdeveloped economies. Current globalization is characterized by factor exchange between economies of persistently unequal development. This implies the existence of persistent extraordinary market power in transnational corporations, reflected in their disproportionate participation in income and policy. These are shown to be steady‐state features of globalization in a convergence club model of development and underdevelopment including trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Moreover, results in tax competition explain how the increased share of transnational profits under globalization leads to lower corporate taxes, more conservative policies, and weaker institutions for balancing market power. The increased level of market power under globalization poses a serious challenge for national and global governance that deeply impacts economic development, distribution, sustainability, and democracy everywhere.