GLOBALISATION: PAST AND PRESENT

This article compares and contrasts the two modern eras of globalisation, namely the one that started in the mid-nineteenth century and ended on the eve of World War I, and the contemporary era. Although in both periods globalisation brought down national barriers and integrated economies and societies, there were distinct characteristic features of both periods. For example, the scale of global integration through trade and financial channels during the contemporary era was unmatched by the previous phase of globalisation. Furthermore, never in history had global integration involved so many countries and people, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the global population.     

MIGRATION, GLOBALISATION AND THE SPIRIT OF PETER BAUER

Lord Bauer understood that the human freedom of movement plays a vital role in development. Today, internal and cross-border migration generates hard-currency remittances that raise living standards and capital investment in the country of origin, promotes greater trade and investment ties between destination and origin countries, and raises a country's stock of human and physical capital when migrants return with new skills and investment funds. Immigration can also stimulate political and social reform when migrants return or foreign-born immigrants arrive with new ideas and experiences. Relaxing the pervasive controls on the international movement of people remains a huge piece of unfinished business on the market-driven development agenda.     

FINANCIAL GLOBALISATION: PAST AND PRESENT

This article compares and contrasts the two modern periods of financial globalisation, approximately a century apart. The focal point of the first period was around the turn of the twentieth century, while that of the second was around the turn of the twenty‐first century. Financial globalisation in the latter era was far deeper and there was a remarkable across‐the‐board transformation of the global financial system. An interesting twenty‐first‐century phenomenon is the recent change in direction of capital flows: that is, sizeable sums of capital flowing from non‐industrial countries to advanced industrial countries.     

A FEW CRITICAL REMARKS ON GLOBALISATION, DEMOCRACY AND SPATIALITY

Globalisation has come in for a lot of criticism. With its emphasis on the unimpeded circulation of capital, it is increasingly regarded as a negative phenomenon that prompts 'creative destruction' of politico-economic spaces at various geographical scales. Globalisation is also thought to cause wage stagnation, widening inequalities, higher unemployment and greater insecurity as well as to undermine local democracy and environmental sustainability. This paper argues that those criticisms should not be unproblematically accepted and makes a case for a less biased and more nuanced interpretation.     

GLOBALISATION AND AN EMERGING GLOBAL MIDDLE CLASS

Globalisation has expanded the size of the global middle class. This expansion will change consumption patterns and shift the balance of spending power to middle-income economies. Rapid growth rates of the middle class in China and India have played a decisive role in creating the middle-income bulge. By 2030 the global middle class has been projected to grow to two billion. It is of note that a large middle class was also created during the first era of globalisation.     

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE FIRST GLOBALISATION

This article argues that the first globalisation from the late 1840s to the First World War offers important lessons for the present era of globalisation. It is argued that the social and economic change created by the first globalisation led to increased protectionism and nationalism in France and Germany rather than the free-trade utopia envisaged by many liberal optimists. Contemporary optimists should be aware that globalisation and liberalisation are not inevitable processes; more and freer trade may induce a similar negative response from the short-term losers and those who fear a more dynamic and less predictable world.     

TRADE LIBERALIZATION, PUBLIC ABATEMENT, AND WELFARE

This paper discusses public abatement financed by pollution tax revenue or tariff revenue and investigates the welfare consequences of a tariff. The main result of this paper is that under certain conditions a tariff reduction results in an improvement in welfare through an increase in public abatement and a decrease in pollution. This result may guide policy for countries that wish to harmonize trade liberalization and the environmental protection demonstrated by both the private and the public sectors.     

ECONOMICS,RELIGION AND THE DECLINE OF EUROPE1

This article asks whether there is any casual connection between the contemporaneous decline in industriousness and religiosity in Europe over the past 25 years. In the United States working hours and levels of religious faith and observance have held steady or even increased over this period. But in most European countries they have declined together. Could this be a posthumous vindication of Max Weber's thesis about the Protestant work ethic and the rise of capitalism? Though there clearly are some important links between religion and economic behaviour, the article concludes that the evidence does not perfectly fit Weber's theory, which emphasised abstinence rather than consumption as a determinant of economic development.     

TRADE,MERCANTILISM AND NATION‐BUILDING

Most treatments of protectionism by economists try to account for the departure on a case‐by‐case basis. However, protectionism is often an element in a systematic political economy. This was developed by authors such as List, and persists today. Debating it requires normative as well as analytical arguments in a political economy approach.     

COMPETITION AND SOCIAL HOUSING IN EUROPE

This article discusses the application of the concept of competition to social housing in Europe. A distinction is made between competition amongst social housing suppliers and between social housing organisations and commercial suppliers of housing. The competitiveness of social housing is examined using evidence mainly from England and the Netherlands.     

A NOTE ON TRADE LIBERALIZATION, PUBLIC ABATEMENT, AND WELFARE

This paper extends Haibara (2006) in order to focus on the welfare consequences of a pollution tax and foreign aid financed for public abatement. The main finding is that environmental protection as a result of increasing a pollution tax by the aid recipient increases the optimal value of foreign aid chosen by the donor and reduces that of a tariff chosen by the recipient. This implies that international environmental cooperation is possible between the donor and the recipient.