Results by title

366 books match the query 'International' and 7 start with n

Sort by

NAFTA and Labor in North America

Norman Caulfield

University of Illinois Press, 2010

As companies increasingly look to the global market for capital, cheaper commodities and labor, and lower production costs, the impact on Mexican and American workers and labor unions is significant. National boundaries and the laws of governments that regulate social relations between laborers and management are less relevant in the era of globalization, rendering ineffective the traditional union strategies of pressuring the state for reform. Focusing especially on the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (the first international labor agreement linked to an international trade agreement), Norman Caulfield notes the waning political influence of trade unions and their disunity and divergence on crucial issues such as labor migration and workers' rights. Comparing the labor movement's fortunes in the 1970s with its current weakened condition, Caulfield notes the parallel decline in the United States' hegemonic influence in an increasingly globalized economy. As a result, organized labor has been transformed from organizations that once pressured management and the state for worker concessions to organizations that now request that workers concede wages, pensions, and health benefits to remain competitive in the global marketplace.

[more]

Narrowing the Channel

The Politics of Regulatory Protection in International Trade

Robert Gulotty

University of Chicago Press, 2020

While large, multinational corporations have supported the removal of tariffs, behind the scenes these firms have fought for protection in the form of product regulations, including testing, labeling, and registration requirements. Unlike tariffs, these regulations can raise fixed costs, excluding smaller firms from the market and shifting profits toward global giants.

Narrowing the Channel demonstrates that globalization and globalized firms can paradoxically hinder rather than foster economic cooperation as larger firms seek to protect their markets through often unnecessarily strict product regulations. To illustrate the problem of regulatory protectionism, Robert Gulotty offers an in-depth analysis of contemporary rulemaking in the United States and the European Union in the areas of health, safety, and environmental standards. He shows how large firms seek regulatory schemes that disproportionately disadvantage small firms. When multinationals are embedded in the local economy, governments too have an incentive to use these regulations to shift profits back home. Today, the key challenge to governing global trade is not how much trade occurs but who is allowed to participate, and this book shows that new rules will be needed to allow governments to widen the benefits of global commerce and avoid further inequality and market concentration.

[more]

National Accounts and Environmentally Sustainable National Income

Roefie Hueting and Bart de Boer

Eburon Academic Publishers, 2019

Our planet is threatened by a mistaken confidence in erroneously calculated growth. The term “economic growth” can only mean an increase in human welfare, but it is often wrongly identified with production growth that may in fact be destructive to the environment. Thus, while the measures of standard National Income (NI) or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are useful for many purposes, they are inadequate in guiding environmental policy making. This book develops the corrective concept of an environmentally Sustainable National Income (eSNI). eSNI is defined as the maximally attainable level of production, using the technology of the year under review, whereby the vital environmental functions (possible uses) of the not-human-made physical surroundings remain available for future generations. In order to accurately judge environmental sustainability, the authors show, NI and eSNI must be addressed jointly. Drawing on data from the Netherlands from 1990 to 2015, the authors demonstrate the effectiveness of eSNI and argue that national statistical bureaus around the world should provide this measure to their own policymakers, so that policymaking across the globe might be informed by sound information about both national economies and the global environment.

[more]

New Directions in Trade Theory

Alan V. Deardorff, James A. Levinsohn, and Robert M. Stern, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1995

This book is a collection of ten essays with discussant commentaries originating from an October 1993 conference at the University of Michigan. Aiming to push international trade theory beyond traditional comparative static analysis, the volume focuses on dynamic modeling, endogenizing trade policy, and analyzing complex interactions among countries, governments, and eco-endogenizing. The collected papers tackle a diverse array of modern economic topics, including complexity theory applied to transport costs and trade structure (Paul Krugman), game-theoretic frameworks examining protectionist lobbying (Gene Grossman and Elhanan Helpman) and results-oriented trade sanctions (Mark Cronshaw and James Markusen), the "Bicycle theory" of gradual trade liberalisation (Robert Staiger), rules of origin as protectionist mechanisms within free trade areas like NAFTA (Kala Krishna and Anne Krueger), technological dynamics and comparative advantage shifts (Michihiro Ohyama and Ronald Jones), and export subsidisation case studies (Dani Rodrik). The title is a stimulating and forward-looking contribution that demonstrates how international trade theory is evolving to address multifaceted real-world challenges.

[more]

Nonfuel Minerals

Foreign Dependence and National Security

Raymond F. Mikesell

University of Michigan Press, 1987

In an uncertain international economic environment, the United States is increasingly dependent upon foreign suppliers for many things, including nonfuel minerals. This book deals with the major problems and policy issues involved with these minerals. The major problems concern the medium- and long-term availability of world supplies, the competitive structure of nonfuel mineral industries, and the location of world production and consumption. Special attention is given to the production of nonfuel minerals in developing countries and the role of foreign investment in Third World mineral industries. The major policy include reducing U.S. vulnerability to disruption of imports of nonfuel minerals; subsidizing, or protecting against imports, domestic producers of nonfuel minerals; conflicts between environmentalists and the mining industry; and international loans to Third World metal-producing countries. While the treatment of conflicting policy positions is objective, the author comes out on the side of unrestricted competition in world markets, including elimination of domestic subsidies to import barriers, the use of economic stockpiles to reduce vulnerability to import disruption, and maintenance of strict environmental pollution standards. The author is optimistic about the long-run outlook for mineral supplies necessary to meet world requirements for economic growth. United States domestic mineral independence may be unnecessary in terms of national security and too costly to consumers and the environment.

[more]

Normal and Abnormal International Capital Transfers

Marco Fanno

University of Minnesota Press, 1939

Normal and Abnormal International Capital Transfers was first published in 1939. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

[more]