Friday, February 16, 2007

Mankiw on Prescott on Globalization

This little post by Greg Mankiw on this blog struck a cord. As well as teaching environmental economics I keep my hand in with some postgraduate international trade.

The Martin Wolf book (see book of the week) does an excellent job in explaining why, although seemingly a thankless task, it is something economists must do. Bhagwati has also been ploughing this furrow for many years (see bookshop).

Here is Greg's post:

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Prescott on Globalization

Nobelist Ed Prescott writes in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

Of all the thankless jobs that economists set for themselves when it comes to educating people about economics, the notion that society is better off if some industries are allowed to wither, their workers lose their jobs, and investors lose their capital -- all in the name of the greater glory of globalization -- surely ranks near the top.

Yes, tell me about it.


The link above is to Greg's paper in the Journal of Monetary Economics titled "The politics and economics of offshore outsourcing" with Phillip Swagel.

I seem to recall reading this when it came out as a working paper which should be freely available through the usual channels. The Economists at Nottingham University have also written widely on this topic. See a previous post on this blog HERE.

1 comment:

Richard Jennings said...

There was just a post where you can get into that Wall Street Journal article for free with a netpass from: http://www.congoo.com