Can We Transform Auckland From A Gateway City to A Global One?
Listener: 8 April, 2006.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
Many cities are gateways, connecting a country or region to the rest of the world. Some are “government” cities, capitals of region or country. But some are global cities, where key global industries boost their size and vibrancy far above their dependence on gateway or government activities.
Editors: Robert Patman and Chris Rudd. Published by: Critical Security Series, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot. England. 258pp. $US99.95/£55.00.
NZIIA, May/June 2006, p.28.
Much of the public’s anxiety about globalisation is concerned with sovereignty. However its understanding of the previous sentence’s last two nouns is vague and imprecise, for each requires careful definition. Patman and Rudd’s introduction defines sovereignty by tracing back to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia as ‘a sovereign state … exercises supreme legal unqualified and exclusive control over a designated territory and its population’, claiming that there are ‘close to 200 sovereign states’ (which almost resolves their question, since if they exist what is the problem?). They are less sure of giving a ‘precise meaning to the term globalisation’, broadly defining it as ‘the intensification of interconnections between societies, institutions, cultures and individuals on a worldwide basis’. Note the first definition involves a situation, the second a process, which complicates the coupling of the two.
Some Key Papers
Listener: 17 December, 2005.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
The World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference, to be held in Hong Kong December 13-18, will be a desperate attempt to get the Doha Round’s trade liberalisation back on track.
Presentation to the Browning Institute, of Public Affairs forum “The WTO in Hong Kong: Make or break time for neo-liberalism?”, 14th of December, McKenzie Room, St John’s in the City, Wellington.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
If New Zealanders are to do what they say they want to do, the New Zealand economy is going to have to specialise in what it is good at, to obtain the dynamic economies of scale which give the high productivity which can underpin New Zealanders’ desire for a rich, sustainable and varied material and non-material life. The New Zealand economy will then have to trade much of what it specialises in, for that which it cannot produce so well. That rules out autarchy and puts us squarely into a world of international economic engagement.
Revised version of Paper for NZIIA Seminar “The Economic and Social Impacts of Globalisation” 21 September, 2005.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; The Economics of Globalisation: An Introduction is a version of this paper with a more detailed economic analysis
Introduction
The Royal Society of New Zealand awarded me a Marsden Fund grant to study globalisation. The study is a continuation of my earlier research program, especially that which is summarised in my book In Stormy Seas with its central message that the fate of New Zealand will be largely a consequence of what happens overseas, together with our ability to seize the opportunities and manage the problems those events create.
Canadian intellectual John Ralston Saul in conversation with Brian Easton about globalism, ideologues and rediscovering moderation.
Listener: September 10, 2005.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;
EASTON: You are a very cosmopolitan person. Canadian father and British mother. You have a degree in French from London, you’ve worked in Paris. You have a Chinese-Canadian wife. You’ve written successful novels as well as international bestsellers on contemporary issues, beginning with “Voltaire’s Bastards”, through another three to your latest, “The Collapse of Globalism”. Yet you seem to be a Canadian nationalist
SAUL: The non-ideological reality is that people come from somewhere. It is an impossible romantic dream that you can be from nowhere. I’ve always believed that the way human beings really live is that they come from somewhere and it colours or shapes the roots of what they think and then you try to find how that fits into the common good.
This is the full edited version of Canadian intellectual John Ralston Saul in conversation with Brian Easton about globalism, ideologues and rediscovering moderation, from which the Listener version of September 10, 2005 was extracted.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;
EASTON: It strikes me that you are a very cosmopolitan person – Canadian father and a British or English mother
Listener: 16 July, 2005.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Unless major decisions are made this month, the Doha Round of international trade negotiations may be in trouble, and the New Zealand economy along with it. Although negotiations are occurring largely beneath the radar of most media, a good outcome is vital to New Zealand. Our economy has been doing well in recent years. The most important reason – other than we have not been doing anything too stupid – is the higher prices for our farm exports, a consequence of the Uruguay Round trade negotiations of the 1990s, which reduced some of the rich world’s subsidies on farm products, lifting world export prices, giving a boost to our farm and farm-processing incomes, and to the overall economy.
But it’s still Ja for the European Project.
Listener: 2 July, 2005.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History;
When New Zealand voted on MMP in 1993, many people said they voted “yes” because the Business Roundtable told them “no”. Whatever their logic, the example illustrates that voters do not necessarily vote on the precise referendum question before them.
Paper for the 2005 Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists, June 29-July 1: Christchurch.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
Introduction
The Royal Society of New Zealand has awarded me a grant from the Marsden Fund to study globalisation. The study is a continuation of my earlier research program, especially that which is summarised in my book In Stormy Seas with its central message that the fate of New Zealand will be largely a consequence of what happens overseas, together with our ability to seize the opportunities and manage the problems those events create.
For Annual Conference of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, 10 May 2005.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Health;
Introduction
The Royal Society of New Zealand has awarded me a grant from the Marsden Fund to study globalisation. The ultimate output will be a book. Today I want to set out the economists’ framework for thinking about globalisation, and to use it to consider the problem of alcohol control and the interaction between countries.
“Spirited Conversations”, Nelson, April 27.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Introduction
The Royal Society of New Zealand has awarded me a grant from the Marsden Fund to study globalisation. What I am going to do this evening is set down the framework economists use when we study that globalisation.
The Royal Society of New Zealand which made a grant to pursue this work, requires an annual report of work in progress. It was submitted in March 2005. This is an edited version.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Summary
The Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand made a grant to fund three years research (at 60 percent of the time) to research and write a book on the topic of globalisation as it affects New Zealand. The grant began in November 2003. This report is written towards the end of March 2005.
Contents
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Paper for the Symposium “Institutions and Economic Development”, University of Otago, 18-19 March (Also draft of chapter for “Distance Looks Our Way”.)
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History;
Introduction
The Royal Society of New Zealand has awarded me a Marsden Grant to study globalisation. The ultimate output will be a book. This paper presents a draft of one of its chapters. Because it is a conference paper, it is necessary to say something about the context in which the chapter takes place. The study is based on five primary principles.
Notes prepared for a meeting (February 2005).
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
My research is concerned with understanding the underlying process of globalisation., providing a foundation for policy and evaluation. But it is not policy focussed, nor does it aim to come to some simple conclusion about whether globalisation is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. To worry at this stage about such issues would be to damage the development of the understanding of the foundations.
The suggestion that rich nations should freeze debt repayments for hard-pressed countries has focussed attention on the ethics of international money lending.
Listener 5 February, 2004
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
As the world seeks to give a hand-up to the countries devastated by the Asian tsunami, and the finance ministers of the world’s seven most powerful economies (the G7) come together in London this week, debt is firmly back on the political agenda.
by Jagdish Bhagwati (Oxford University Press, 308 pp. $72.95) ISBN 0-19-517024-3, reviewed in New Zealand International Review, January/February 2005, Vol XXX, No 1, p.31-32.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
The economics student struggling though the mind-numbing theory of international trade will eventually hit upon learned papers by Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati, whose contributions make him a candidate for an economics prize in honour of Alfred Nobel. They will soon learn that beyond his painstaking rigour he has a total commitment to free trade. So there was much glee among anti-globalisers when he rejected some aspects of globalisation. There may be less as a result of his latest book In Defence of Globalization.
Globalization in Historical Perspective, a National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report, edited by M.D. Bordo, A.M. Taylor and J.G. Williamson. (The University of Chicago Press, 2003)
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
The public, which has firm, uninformed, and confused views on globalisation, would be astonished as to what the scholars think about the topic, although perhaps less surprised as to what they do not (yet) know.