This study examines the effects of economic globalization on gender wage inequality. A theory of global economic restructuring and its impact on the quality of women’s work suggests that national integration into the world economy through trade liberalization significantly expands women’s access to income but does not necessarily remove barriers to women’s advancement or ameliorate the predomin...

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 R I. Economic Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 R A. The Movement Toward Market Liberalization: Benefits . . 213 R B. Benefits of FDI to Emerging Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 R C. The Costs of Liberal...

Despite the enormous economic benefit from accession to the WTO, overall welfare of trade liberalization might be compromised since pollution from production also increased. Using plausibly exogeneous tariff reduction on Chinese goods caused by the WTO accession, variation in industry composition across cities, and variation in pollution intensity across industries, I study the effect of trade ...

T agreement to create a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was one of the major innovations to emerge from the Uruguay round. Trade in services was not covered by the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), even though such trade had always accounted for a non-trivial share of the foreign exchange earnings (expenditures) of many countries. The best estimates available sug...

Economists tend to exalt the virtues of free international trade, while politicians are more skeptical. This paper suggests that this is the case because politicians mainly worry about the income distribution effects of trade liberalization, while economists focus on efficiency. Using textbook economic analyses we show that compensating the income distribution effects of free trade may be more ...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) involves twelve Pacific Rim economies of varying sizes and structures. Although often portrayed as a free trade agreement, the TPPA can, at best, be expected to deliver paltry overall growth gains from trade liberalization. The much higher figures touted by TPPA advocates are largely due to dubious ‘non-trade measures’, most of which have been reje...

The degree of liberalization in OECD electricity markets varies considerably across countries. Commonly explained by diverging economic performances, corruption levels or government ideologies, this paper suggest another potential reason for cross-national differences in market reforms: given the high financial dependence of regulatory actors on public funding both in the past and nowadays, we ...

This paper considers the main elements of the standard pattern of fi nancial liberalization that has become widely prevalent in developing countries. The theoretical arguments in favour of such liberalization are considered and critiqued, and the political economy of such measures is discussed. The problems for developing countries, with respect to fi nancial fragility and the greater propensit...

This paper indicates that the consequences of regional trade agreements for the world trade system may be deceiving—an arrangement’s apparent virtue may constitute the source of its drawback. In a model where governments have political, as well as economic, motivations, I show that a free trade area induces its members to reduce protection against the non-members, and to do so sufficiently deep...

Th roughout the era of economic liberalization (1978–2007), a signifi cant amount of governmental power was transferred to technocratguardians who were carefully buff ered from elected offi cials. Democratic processes, it was said, had to be disciplined through such reforms if nations were to thrive in a globalized economy. Th is way of thinking about reform was already under assault before the...