Category Archives: Globalisation & Trade

The G Word: the Benefit Of International Economic Intercourse

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 17th February 2001 by Brian Easton.

Listener 17 February, 2001.

Keywords Globalisation & Trade;

The US-led world economic boom of the 1990s may be ending. The economy in 2001 is likely to be rocky in the US, stagnant in Japan, and the rest of the world could suffer with them. That will generate a loss of confidence, not only in the state of the economy, but in some of the euphoric theories that have been dredged up to justify the over-optimism. Dont panic: monetary-based economies fluctuate – always have, always will. But the long term trends – such as globalisation – will grind remorselessly on, and we still need to think about them rigorously.

Polish Shipyards: Why the Poles Have Done Better Than Us over the Last Decade.

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 6th January 2001 by Brian Easton.

Listener 6 January 2001

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

I like Warsaw. The young people swing along the street with all the insouciance of Parisians. But the old folk bear their past. One could easily have been ruled by the Russians, the Germans, the interwar Republic of Poland, the Soviet Union, and the communist regime of Poland, without hardly moving residence. And now as age (and some brutal winds from the Steppes) close on them, they are once more in a democratic regime.

Global Warnings

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 24th June 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener:24 June, 2000.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

I probably read a major article or a book on globalization every fortnight. One usually finishes thinking the authors do not know what they are talking about either. ‘Globalization’ means so many different things, even to the same writer, that one ends up in confusion. The best I can conclude is that massive technological changes are changing the potential economic geography of the world. Globalization is the financial, economic, social and political response. Different writers look at different facets of the whole, and miss the complexity of the totality.

The Gulf Between East and West

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 15th April 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 15 April, 2000

Keywords Globalisation & Trade;

The Americans who first drilled for Arabian Gulf oil in the 1950s smoked tobacco. Despite an Islamic prohibition, the locals took up the habit, which steadily spread across the country. (Today lung cancer rates in the oil regions of Saudi Arabia are about double the national average, which is climbing.)

Postcard from Arabia

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 1st April 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 1 April, 2000

Keywords Globalisation & Trade;

Of Arrowtown, Denis Glover wrote there was “Gold in the ceilings/ gold in the floors”. He did not mean literally: rather gold mining has shaped the town. Saudi Arabia is shaped by oil. It holds more than a quarter of the world’s known oil reserves, and is finding more. Currently the kingdom supplies about an eighth of total production, and is flush with the revenue from its sales.

Trading Platitudes: Review Of Apec in Focus, by S. McMillan, B. Ramasamy,

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade on 1st October 1999 by Brian Easton.

New Zealand Books, October 1999, p.3-4.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

Malcolm Templeton’s Human Rights and Sporting Contacts and Trevor Richards’ Dancing on our Bones are about the same issue although sometimes the reader might think they were in different countries, so different are their perspectives: Templeton provides a comprehensive account of New Zealand’s fraught relationship with apartheid South Africa in the context of New Zealand’s entire foreign diplomacy; Richards’ account is that of the much vilified, but eventually successful (nowadays even respected), protest movement which he led.

Global Warning: What Would Bruce Jesson Have Said About Apec?

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 11th September 1999 by Brian Easton.

Listener 11 September 1999

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

I wish Bruce Jesson were here, especially as I write this column about APEC. Bruce and I use to discuss our putative writings. Never directly of course, but after a mulling over, one of us would say “I’ve been thinking about writing a column on this issue, and …” Sadly, we dont know what Bruce would have written on the APEC conference, but there are hints in his last major article.

Economic Globalization and National Sovereignty

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Governance on 16th August 1999 by Brian Easton.

In R. Miller (ed)New Zealand Government and Politics OUP (2001) p.14-24. Written in August 1999.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Governance;

In recent years there has been increasing concern that a phenomenon of economic globalization, in which the economic processes of production, finance, and exchange in each country are becoming more interdependent between countries, is undermining the sovereignty of the state. In the New Zealand of 1999 this was symbolised by APEC, one of the agencies which promotes this globalisation, albeit a minor one compared to the IMF, World Bank, and WTO (World Trading Organisation), but the government’s focusing on it as a part of its (failed) reelection strategy, because it was hosting the annual APEC conference in September 1999 in Auckland (and numerous preparatory ones before then) gave the organization an undeserved prominence. In particular there was widespread public discussion, much of it reflecting a concern, and some of it generating unrest because APEC (and more fundamentally globalisation) was seen to be against New Zealand’s interests, in contradiction to the government’s expressed belief that it was beneficial. Much of the debate, if it may be called that, from both sides was simplistic and rhetorical, missing the complexities and subtleties of the issue. Rather than provide a yea or nay, this chapter tries to set down the context, first by wading through the narrow economics, but later by opening up the topic to place the economics in the wider context of political economy.

The Green Tiger: The Irish Can Joke About New Zealand

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 19th June 1999 by Brian Easton.

Listener 19 June, 1999

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money;

The OECD report on the Irish economy, released this month, is unusually fulsome about their economy, describing its performance as “stunning” and “the envy of countries around the world.” They were referring to the last three years, but they could have been referring to the last fifteen. The accompanying table shows an annual GDP growth rate of 6 percent, high employment and productivity growth, low inflation, a balance of payments surplus, and the almost halving of unemployment.The feat is all the more extraordinary because their economic performance before 1985 was worse than New Zealand’s. Between 1978 and 1985 Irish employment actually fell, consumer inflation was marginally higher than ours, and at 8 percent of GDP the current account deficit was even larger than New Zealand’s is today.

The Soros Manifesto

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 16th January 1999 by Brian Easton.

The Endangered Open Society Propels an Urgent Plea For World Financial Reform
Listener 16 January, 1999.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

One of the more bizarre events of the late 1980s was the right wing think tank, the Mont Pelerin Society, holding a conference in Christchurch in honour of philosopher Karl Popper. The approach – one would hardly call it a philosophy – of the majority of attenders was an anathema to Popper. Especially Roger Douglas, whose paper reported his infamous blitzkrieg policy implementation principles, in which democracy is over-ridden, in the total certainty that his policies were correct. Popper would have been interested in the extent that the policies worked – they have not – but Douglas’s unwavering certainty in the truth of his vision would be totally unacceptable. For Popper knowledge is fallible. One constantly reviewed one’s hypotheses to judge their truth. Scepticism is at the heart of his approach, not ideological belief. Douglas’s paper was the equivalent of devil worship in the Popperian church.

When Capital Flees: the Case for Exchange Controls Is Not out Of This World

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 17th October 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener 17 October, 1998.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money;

While I was recently analyzing a government report for a class, a student (who apparently worked on it) became increasingly agitated, asking what was my alternative proposal. Not worrying about analysis, but pursuing policy, is a characteristic Wellington foible. The same fallacy applied to the economists who criticized economist Paul Krugman when he was here. They did not suffer from the disadvantage of having read his analysis, which was considerably more subtle and sophisticated than the critics thought. You dont successfully spend time in top US university economics common rooms and the US economics circuit, without developing powerful defences to the elementary points the New Zealand critics made.

Heretic to High Priest: Krugman ‘sort of’ Predicted the Asian Crisis Three Years Earlier

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 15th August 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 15 August, 1998

Keywords Business & Finance, Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy, Macroeconomics & Money

“A decade ago, he was the most celebrated heretic. Today, Paul Krugman is the high priest of economics, his career transformed by the unintended consequences of his own iconoclasm. Some of his radical instincts remain; but they now serve a different purpose. The vigour with which Krugman once probed the outer limits of economics is now used to protect its core values. Through his popular writings, he defends the dismal science by exposing fallacies in the public discussion of economics issues.” (Prospect, April 1998)

All for One: Robert Reich’s Recipe Living in a Globalized World

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 18th July 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener 18 July, 1998.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

Robert Reich, Clinton’s previous Secretary of Labour, is a living embodiment of his own theories. His The Work of Nations argued that globalization has made it is increasingly hard to say where a particular product is produced, because the various components are made in many different countries. A Japanese marque car may have more American content than an American marque which uses Japanese components. (Either may have New Zealand made wheel hubs.) It is also true for Reich, for his artificial hips come from Germany, and were designed in France.

Notes for a Presentation on Maori Exporting

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation, Maori on 10th June 1998 by Brian Easton.

Presentation to a TPK seminar. June 1998.

Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Maori;

The Maori economy has made exceptional progress in recent years. Preliminary figures from the 1996 Population Census show that the numbers of Maori employed have grown considerably faster than the Maori adult population, and that additional employment has tended to be in the better quality jobs: more at the managerial level, more involving greater skills. Job growth has also been strong in those industries to which the Maori has given priority: agriculture, forestry, fishing, and tourism. (See the attached table.) In summary the Maori Development Strategy of upgrading Maori skills, increasing Maori work experience, and emphasising Maori business in key growth industries has been extremely successful.

Open and Closed: Is the US Economy a Good Model for New Zealand?

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 25th April 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener 25 April, 1998.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Numerous readers have asked me to reply to Debasis Bandyopadnyay’s review of my In Stormy Seas: the Post-War New Zealand Economy (7 March 1998). I do not think that quite appropriate, especially since dealing with the review’s errors and misunderstandings would be tedious to the reader. But he raised one issue so central to the economic debate, that it is useful to address it here. The review argued I was unaware of some of the current fashionable theories of the supply-side of economic growth. It did not say that I gave a quite different account of the growth process, based on the external demand side.

The Globalisation Of Rugby

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 11th April 1998 by Brian Easton.

Even the Most Sacred of Our Icons Cannot Avoid World Trends.
Listener 11 April, 1998.

Keywords Globalisation and International Trade

In an innovative and insightful article a couple of decades ago, sociologist Geoff Fougere pointed out that there was a sense in which non-Maori New Zealand was organized on a tribal basis, where the tribal areas was the rugby football provinces. A number of factors determined the regions: community of interest (parochialism?); geographic integration, for club teams would not want to travel too far; size to be financially viable, and to be able to compete effectively against the rest of the country. The regional structure of unions evolved. At late as 1985 North Shore split off from Auckland, while there was a continuing amalgamation among smaller unions no longer viable by themselves: Golden Bay and Nelson in 1969; Wairarapa and Bush in 1971.

Chapter 9: The Internationalization Of the New Zealand Economy

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade on 10th December 1997 by Brian Easton.

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords:Globalisation & Trade;

The glacial shift to a fully market economy before 1984, was obscured by the draconian wage and price freeze form 1982 to 1984. It is important that it is noticed, for while the transformation after 1984 was faster, extremist, and ideologically driven, it was not a merely a political fashion. The external diversification of the 1970s was impacting back on the domestic economy. Before 1966 the economy had almost a dual structure in which the pastoral export sector and its suppliers were almost independent of the domestic sector. The connection was that the consumers dependent upon the incomes from exporting, were forced by imports, tariffs, and other interventions to give preference to domestically produced goods and services. (This enabled foreign exchange – in effect real incomes – to be transferred to the domestic sector and made average incomes of the two sectors more equal.) (1)

Chapter 5: The Great Diversification: 1966-1984

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation on 10th December 1997 by Brian Easton.

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;

With the collapse of the price of wool in 1966, came the end of the economic miracle. Although the price collapse was rapid, it took longer for its implications to work their way through, while the inevitable noise obscured the long term trend.