Globalized
The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution
David Law & Mila Versteeg
NYU Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
It has been suggested, with growing frequency, that the United States may be losing its influence over constitutionalism in other countries because it is increasingly out of sync with an evolving global consensus on issues of human rights. Little is known in an empirical and systematic way, however, about the extent to which the U.S. Constitution influences the revision and adoption of formal constitutions in other countries. In this Article, we show empirically that other countries have, in recent decades, become increasingly unlikely to model either the rights-related provisions or the basic structural provisions of their own constitutions upon those found in the U.S. Constitution. Analysis of sixty years of comprehensive data on the content of the world's constitutions reveals that there is a significant and growing generic component to global constitutionalism, in the form of a set of rights provisions that appear in nearly all formal constitutions. On the basis of this data, we are able to identify the world's most and least generic constitutions. Our analysis also confirms, however, that the U.S. Constitution is increasingly far from the global mainstream. The fact that the U.S. Constitution is not widely emulated raises the question of whether there is an alternative paradigm that constitutional drafters in other countries now employ as a model instead. One possibility is that their attention has shifted to some other prominent national constitution. To evaluate this possibility, we analyze the content of the world's constitutions for telltale patterns of similarity to the constitutions of Canada, Germany, South Africa, and India, which have often been identified as especially influential. We find some support in the data for the notion that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has influenced constitution-making in other countries. This influence is neither uniform nor global in scope, however, but instead reflects an evolutionary path shared primarily by other common law countries. By comparison, we uncover no patterns that would suggest widespread constitutional emulation of Germany, South Africa, or India. Another possibility is that international and regional human rights instruments have become especially influential upon the manner in which national constitutions are written. We find little evidence to indicate that any of the leading human rights treaties now serves as a dominant model for constitutional drafters. Some noteworthy patterns of similarity between national constitutions and international legal instruments do exist: For example, the constitutions of undemocratic countries tend to exhibit greater similarity to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while those of common law countries manifest the opposite tendency. It is difficult to infer from these patterns, however, that countries have actually emulated international or regional human rights instruments when writing their constitutions.
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Exportability of Films in a Globalizing Market: The Intersection of Nation and Genre
Diane Barthel-Bouchier
Cultural Sociology, March 2012, Pages 75-91
Abstract:
While the dominance of the Hollywood major studios in the global film market is a well-known fact, less is known about the patterns of exportability by film genre and by nation. Here I present data pertaining to cross-national comparisons between France and the United States, as well as relevant global market figures for US films by genre. The findings challenge the assumption that specific genres, notably comedy, do not export. Rather, it appears that most US comedies that are successful in the States, like most other genres of US films, do and are exported. The case for France, however, appears quite different, insofar as the top films, which were overwhelmingly also comedies, did not export. Exports in the French case were more characteristic of niche marketing: namely quality nature films that could be easily translated, and films that fit specific cultural expectations (Barnier and Moine, 2002; Frodon, 1998). This research also suggests that the traditional confrontation of theoretical approaches (cultural imperialist, cultural studies, and the economic approach) fits neither the current situation of a globalizing industry nor the cultural complexity of many films, but that a more nuanced approach should focus on strategies available to different players and relationships formed among producers and between producers and specific markets.
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The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States
David Autor, David Dorn & Gordon Hanson
MIT Working Paper, August 2011
Abstract:
We analyze the effect of rising Chinese import competition between 1990 and 2007 on local U.S. labor markets, exploiting cross-market variation in import exposure stemming from initial differences in industry specialization while instrumenting for imports using changes in Chinese imports by industry to other high-income countries. Rising exposure increases unemployment, lowers labor force participation, and reduces wages in local labor markets. Conservatively, it explains one-quarter of the contemporaneous aggregate decline in U.S. manufacturing employment. Transfer benefits payments for unemployment, disability, retirement, and healthcare also rise sharply in exposed labor markets. The deadweight loss of financing these transfers is one to two-thirds as large as U.S. gains from trade with China.
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Management Practices Across Firms and Countries
Nicholas Bloom et al.
Harvard Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across twenty countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing American, Japanese, and German firms are the best managed. Firms in developing countries, such as Brazil, China and India tend to be poorly managed. American retail firms and hospitals are also well managed by international standards, although American schools are worse managed than those in several other developed countries. We also find substantial variation in management practices across organizations in every country and every sector, mirroring the heterogeneity in the spread of performance in these sectors. One factor linked to this variation is ownership. Government, family, and founder owned firms are usually poorly managed, while multinational, dispersed shareholder and private-equity owned firms are typically well managed. Stronger product market competition and higher worker skills are associated with better management practices. Less regulated labor markets are associated with improvements in incentive management practices such as performance based promotion.
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Birth Rates and Border Crossings: Latin American Migration to the US, Canada, Spain, and the UK
Gordon Hanson & Craig McIntosh
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use census data for the US, Canada, Spain, and UK to estimate bilateral migration rates to these countries from 25 Latin American and Caribbean nations over the period 1980 to 2005. Latin American migration to the US is responsive to labour supply and demand shocks as well as natural disasters. Latin American migration to Canada, Spain, and the UK, in contrast, is largely insensitive to these shocks, responding only to civil and military conflict. The results are consistent with US immigration being mediated by market forces and immigration to the other countries being insulated from labour market shocks.
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Immigration, Wages, and Compositional Amenities
David Card, Christian Dustmann & Ian Preston
Journal of the European Economic Association, February 2012, Pages 78-119
Abstract:
There is strong public opposition to increased immigration throughout Europe. Given the modest economic impacts of immigration estimated in most studies, the depth of anti-immigrant sentiment is puzzling. Immigration, however, does not just affect wages and taxes. It also changes the composition of the local population, threatening the compositional amenities that natives derive from their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. In this paper we use a simple latent-factor model, combined with data for 21 countries from the 2002 European Social Survey (ESS), to measure the relative importance of economic and compositional concerns in driving opinions about immigration policy. The ESS included a unique battery of questions on the labor market and social impacts of immigration, as well as on the desirability of increasing or reducing immigrant inflows. We find that compositional concerns are 2-5 times more important in explaining variation in individual attitudes toward immigration policy than concerns over wages and taxes. Likewise, most of the difference in opinion between more- and less-educated respondents is attributable to heightened compositional concerns among people with lower education.
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The Economic Origins of Democracy Reconsidered
John Freeman & Dennis Quinn
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The effects of inequality and financial globalization on democratization are central issues in political science. The relationships among economic inequality, capital mobility, and democracy differ in the late twentieth century for financially integrated autocracies vs. closed autocracies. Financial integration enables native elites to create diversified international asset portfolios. Asset diversification decreases both elite stakes in and collective action capacity for opposing democracy. Financial integration also changes the character of capital assets - including land - by altering the uses of capital assets and the nationality of owners. It follows that financially integrated autocracies, especially those with high levels of inequality, are more likely to democratize than unequal financially closed autocracies. We test our argument for a panel of countries in the post-World War II period. We find a quadratic hump relationship between inequality and democracy for financially closed autocracies, but an upward sloping relationship between inequality and democratization for financially integrated autocracies.
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When is it Optimal to Delegate: The Theory of Fast-track Authority
Levent Celik, Bilgehan Karabay & John McLaren
NBER Working Paper, February 2012
Abstract:
With fast-track authority (FTA), the US Congress delegates trade-policy authority to the President by committing not to amend a trade agreement. We suggest an interpretation in which Congress uses FTA to forestall destructive competition between its members for protectionist rents. We show that FTA is never granted if an industry is operating in the majority of districts. Second, the more equally distributed are the industries across districts and the more similar are the industries' sizes, the more likely it is that FTA is granted. This is true since competition over rents is most punishing when bargaining power is symmetrically distributed, and in that case the ex ante expected welfare of each district is lower without FTA. Third, if existing levels of protection are very different across industries, even if FTA is granted, it may not lead to free trade because a majority of industries may prefer the status quo to free trade.
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Student-Centeredness in Social Science Textbooks, 1970-2008: A Cross-National Study
Patricia Bromley, John Meyer & Francisco Ramirez
Social Forces, December 2011, Pages 547-570
Abstract:
A striking feature of modern societies is the extent to which individual persons are culturally validated as equal and empowered actors. The expansion of a wide range of rights in recent decades, given prominence in current discussions of world society, supports an expanded conception of the individual. We examine the extent to which broad global changes promoting human empowerment are associated with expanded ideas of the status and capacities of students. We hypothesize that there are substantial increases in student-centered educational foci in countries around the world. First, the rights of students as children are directly asserted. Second, an emphasis on empowered human agency supports forms of socialization that promote active participation as well as the capacities and interests of the student. Examining a unique dataset of 533 secondary school social science textbooks from 74 countries published over the past 40 years, we find that textbooks have indeed become more student-centered, and that this shift is associated with the rising status of individuals and children in global human rights treaties and organizations. Student-centered texts are more common in countries with greater individualism embodied in political and socio-economic institutions and ideologies, and with more links to world society. The study contributes to both political and educational sociology, examining how global changes lead to increased emphasis on empowered individual agency in intended curricula.
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How important is cultural background for the level of intergenerational mobility?
Daniel Schnitzlein
Economics Letters, March 2012, Pages 335-337
Abstract:
Based on brother correlations in permanent earnings for different groups of second generation immigrants, the findings in this paper indicate that cultural background is not a major determinant of the level of intergenerational economic mobility.
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The role of the United States in the global economy and its evolution over time
Stephane Dees & Arthur Saint-Guilhem
Empirical Economics, December 2011, Pages 573-591
Abstract:
This article aims at assessing the role of the United States in the global economy and its evolution over time. Based on a Global VAR modeling approach, this article shows first that countries with a large trade exposure with the U.S. economy have a relatively larger sensitivity to U.S. developments. However, even for countries that do not trade so much with the U.S., they are largely influenced by its dominance through other partners' trade. Moreover, while no clear trend seems to emerge, it seems that the role of the U.S. in the global economy has changed over time. Overall, for most countries - the latest recession excluded - a change in U.S. GDP had weaker impacts - though more persistent - for most recent periods. The latest recession, however, led to some renewed increase in the sensitivity of the economies to U.S. developments.
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Prasanna Tambe & Lorin Hitt
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We combine new information technology (IT) offshoring and IT workforce microdata to investigate how the use of IT offshore captive centers is affecting the skill composition of the U.S. onshore IT workforce. The analysis is based on the theory that occupations involving tasks that are "tradable," such as tasks that require little personal communication or hands-on interaction with U.S.-based objects, are vulnerable to being moved offshore. Consistent with this theory, we find that firms that have offshore IT captive centers have 8% less of their onshore IT workforce involved in tradable occupations; those without offshore captive centers have increased the proportion of onshore employment in these same occupations by 3%. In addition, we find that hourly IT workers (e.g., IT contractors) are disproportionately employed in tradable jobs, and their onshore employment is 2%-3% lower in firms with offshore captive centers. These findings persist after considering different measures of employment composition, including controls for human capital, firm performance, domestic outsourcing, and whether firms choose to build or buy software. Instrumental variables and corroborating regressions suggest that our estimates are conservative - the magnitude of the effect generally rises after accounting for reverse causality and measurement error.
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Internationalization, competitiveness and performance in athletics (1984-2006)
V. De Bosscher, C. Du Bois & B. Heyndels
Sport in Society, Winter 2012, Pages 88-102
Abstract:
This study examines whether a process of internationalization has affected the level of athletic performance amongst high-level athletes competing on the world stage. Top 100 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) rankings were compared at two time points: 1984 and 2006, by event and by gender. We identified internationalization as a determinant of the level of athletic performances. This level increased more in events that witnessed more important shifts in market shares (dynamic internationalization or competitiveness) and where dominance by a subset of countries (static internationalization) decreased. This internationalization clearly affects performances in men's athletics (as the performance has clearly gone up since 1984), but not in women's athletics. Here the general level of women's athletics has actually decreased.
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Globalization, Gender, and Growth
Ray Rees & Ray Riezman
Review of Income and Wealth, March 2012, Pages 107-117
Abstract:
We consider the effect of globalization on fertility, human capital, and growth. We view globalization as creating market opportunities for employment in less developed countries. We construct a specific model of household decision making, drawing on empirical observations in the development economics literature, and show that if the market opportunities produced by globalization are for women, then globalization reduces fertility and increases human capital formation. If the opportunities are for men, then fertility increases and human capital formation falls. We then show that globalization that produces job opportunities for women increases growth and produces a long run steady state with higher per capita consumption than would prevail either without globalization, or with globalization that creates jobs only for men.
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David Hummels & Georg Schaur
NBER Working Paper, January 2012
Abstract:
A large and growing share of international trade is carried on airplanes. Air cargo is many times more expensive than maritime transport but arrives in destination markets much faster. We model firms' choice between exporting goods using fast but expensive air cargo and slow but cheap ocean cargo. This choice depends on the price elasticity of demand and the value that consumers attach to fast delivery and is revealed in the relative market shares of firms who air and ocean ship. We use US imports data that provide rich variation in the premium paid for air shipping and in time lags for ocean transit to identify these parameters and extract consumer's valuation of time. By exploiting variation across US entry coasts we are able to control for selection and for unobserved shocks to product quality and variety that affect market shares. We estimate that each day in transit is equivalent to an ad-valorem tariff of 0.6 to 2.3 percent and that the most time-sensitive trade flows are those involving parts and components trade. These results suggest a link between sharp declines in the price of air shipping and rapid growth in trade as well as growth in world-wide fragmentation of production. Our estimates are also useful for assessing the economic impact of policies that raise or lower time to trade such as security screening of cargo, port infrastructure investment, or streamlined customs procedures.
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On the Economic Consequences of the Peace: Trade and Borders After Versailles
Nikolaus Wolf, Max-Stephan Schulze & Hans-Christian Heinemeyer
Journal of Economic History, December 2011, Pages 915-949
Abstract:
The First World War radically altered the political landscape of Central Europe. The new borders after 1918 are typically viewed as detrimental to the region's economic integration and development. We argue that this view lacks historical perspective. It fails to take into account that the new borders followed a pattern of economic fragmentation that had emerged during the late nineteenth century. We estimate the effects of the new borders on trade and find that the "treatment effects" of these borders were quite limited. There is strong evidence that border changes occurred systematically along barriers which existed already before 1914.
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International Negotiations and Domestic Politics: The Case of IMF Labor Market Conditionality
Teri Caraway, Stephanie Rickard & Mark Anner
International Organization, January 2012, Pages 27-61
Abstract:
What is the role of international organizations (IOs) in the formulation of domestic policy, and how much influence do citizens have in countries' negotiations with IOs? We examine these questions through a study of labor-related conditionality in International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. Using new data from IMF loan documents for programs from 1980 to 2000, we test to see if citizens' economic interests influence IMF conditionality. We examine the substance of loan conditions and identify those that require liberalization in the country's domestic labor market or that have direct effects on employment, wages, and social benefits. We find evidence that democratic countries with stronger domestic labor receive less intrusive labor-related conditions in their IMF loan programs. We argue that governments concerned about workers' opposition to labor-related loan conditions negotiate with the IMF to minimize labor conditionality. We find that the IMF is responsive to domestic politics and citizens' interests.
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Does immigration weaken natives' support for the unemployed? Evidence from Germany
Holger Stichnoth
Public Choice, June 2012, Pages 631-654
Abstract:
Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use individual-level panel data, which allows a more convincing identification of a causal effect. I find that the negative bivariate association is mainly driven by observed individual differences, such as East German origin or income. While there remains some evidence of a negative association even after adjusting for observed and unobserved individual differences, the association is relatively weak.
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Investment and Growth in Rich and Poor Countries
Yin-Wong Cheung, Michael Dooley & Vladyslav Sushko
NBER Working Paper, January 2012
Abstract:
This paper revisits the association between investment and growth. The empirical findings highlight substantial heterogeneity for the effect of investment on growth and suggest a possible negative association. Results based on a battery of cross-sectional and time-series regressions show that the link between investment and growth has weakened over time and that investment in high-income countries is more likely to have a negative effect on growth. The adverse effect for high-income countries appears to have increased over time. An implication is that uphill capital flows could be associated with negative or zero returns. The result is robust to the presence of control variables that are commonly included in growth studies.
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Which Sectors Make Poor Countries So Unproductive?
Berthold Herrendorf & Ákos Valentinyi
Journal of the European Economic Association, forthcoming
Abstract:
Which sectors are most responsible for the low total factor productivities of developing countries? To answer this question we develop a new framework for sectoral development accounting. Applying this framework to the Penn World Table, we find that in equipment, construction, and food the sectoral TFP differences between developing countries and the United States are much larger than in the aggregate. However, in manufactured consumption the sectoral TFP differences are about equal to the aggregate TFP differences, and in services they are much smaller. We show that our level of disaggregation allows us to reconcile the results of existing studies of sectoral productivity differences, which have focused on noncomparable two-sector decompositions of the aggregate data. We also show that our results help shed light on existing theories of aggregate TFP differences.
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Brain drain in the age of mass migration: Does relative inequality explain migrant selectivity?
Yvonne Stolz & Joerg Baten
Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming
Abstract:
Brain drain is a core economic policy problem for many developing countries today. Does relative inequality in source and destination countries influence the brain-drain phenomenon? We explore human capital selectivity during the period 1820-1909.We apply age heaping techniques to measure human capital selectivity of international migrants. In a sample of 52 source and five destination countries we find selective migration determined by relative anthropometric inequality in source and destination countries. Other inequality measures confirm this. The results remain robust in OLS and Arellano-Bond approaches. We confirm the Roy-Borjas model of migrant self-selection. Moreover, we find that countries like Germany and UK experienced a small positive effect, because the less educated emigrated in larger numbers.