Financial globalization and international trade

Some of the advantages of international markets over national markets:  trade across national borders, which in turn generates wealth and brings about prosperity;  opportunities for e

Financial Globalization and

International Trade

The classical liberal political economy of England and Scotland:

 In the long run, it is beneficial to all if markets are

allowed to operate freely with each other.

Why is the market good?

 As the most efficient means of organizing human

production and exchange (an ‘invisible hand’ guiding and coordinating economic activity)

Some of the advantages of international markets over national markets:

 trade across national borders, which in turn generates wealth

and brings about prosperity;

 opportunities for economic co-operation that brings about

interdependence among states;

 International capital markets, allocate money more efficiently

than local ones.

The argument in favor of free markets speaks:

 against protectionism, which, from a liberal perspective, is a

consequence of states acting according to short-sighted and perverse conceptions of the ‘national interest’.

 against mercantilism (the dominant trade practice at in the

early 1800s).

Two important limitations of markets:

 Built-in inequality of participants

 Periods of irrational behavior and speculative excess

(market inefficiencies particularly in financial markets)

The great depression: led to the economic

collapse of 1929-1934:

There are important similarities with the current

crisis:

 The banking crises so crippled credit markets that

lending virtually stopped.

 Depositors would not keep money in banks fearing that

banks would close So a run on the banks developed at the first sign of difficulties

The US federal government dramatically increased its role during the New Deal:

 It imposed significant controls on trade

 There was a decreased reliance on markets and more on

state regulation and state-induced consumption (large public projects, etc.)

 Regulated economy.

 Demand-side economics (associated with British

economist John Maynard Keynes)

Markets are imperfect

 International economic order is imperfect.

 All markets operate within a political framework.

 To the extent to which international power structures are

supportive of global markets, global markets are likely to

be sustained

 But international power structures are fragile and prone

to instability, which often undermines the stability of

markets

Summary from the last time:

Markets are efficient but need some regulation because of inherent limitations How much regulation is subject to political debate

Stable currency values are necessary in order to have trade

Political arrangement to underline a stable international monetary system (corresponding to the political structures of power)

There were two such important political arrangements over the last

150 years: the gold standard and the Breton Wood system

In order to have international trade you need

to have stable monetary relations:

 The Gold standard (the period of classical liberalism, the

first attempt to expand international trade; roughly

between 1860s and 1914) Created a system of fixed

exchange rates (and helped both investment and trade)

The Bretton Woods System after WW2

 created the IMF, the World and the GATT (the set or

rules, norms and values);

 system created the gold-dollar regime (fixed exchange

rate system).

International Monetary Fund

 Its primary role was to prevent the global economic crisis that

engulfed the world during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s:

 1 Monitor a new system for valuing national currencies, the

Originally, the IMF was:

 1 based on a recognition that markets often did not

work well – that they could result in massive

unemployment and might fail to make needed funds available.

 2 founded on the belief that there is a need for

international pressure on countries to have more economic policies that promote expansion.

The triumph of the Keynesian side economics)…

(“demand- over the laissez faire economics (both

domestically and internationally).

IMF:

 1 Monitor a new system for valuing national currencies,

the dollar-gold standard

 2 Make short-term loans to countries experiencing

balance-of-payments problems;

 3 Compile an annual report on each member country's

economy

International monetary relations stabilized, international trade was liberalized:

 The liberalization of world trade was the most important

achievement of the Bretton Woods system

 After six months of negotiations, the original GATT members

signed over a 100 agreements, affecting more than 45

thousand tariffs that covered about half of world trade

 This was a shift in the direction of global liberalization of

trade

The Bretton Woods system delivered the goods:

economic growth,

 low unemployment (Unemployment averaged just 3

percent in the main OECD countries, compared to 5

percent during the gold standard and 8 percent in the interwar years)

 stable prices

 relatively free trade,

 stable currency values,

 and high levels of international investment (but mostly

across the Atlantic).

Postwar (1950-1973) economic growth

was extraordinary everywhere:

 The advanced capitalist nations as a whole grew three

times as fast as in the interwar years and twice as fast as before World War One

 In the glory years of classical liberalism before 1914

world trade volume doubled every 20 to 25 years.

 After 1950 world trade volume doubled every 10 years

This was a political arrangement

 It was a compromise dictated by the needs of the day.

 Back then the US was dominant and there was a

common threat around which to unite (Even with those conditions, it took the US almost four full years from the end of World War II until Marshall Plan money really

started making its way into Europe)

 It took a depression, the Second World War, and the

beginning of the Cold War to motivate real rather than

symbolic actions concerning the creation of a

functioning international community, at least the western branch of such a community.

Some examples of the political

arrangements involved:

 In monetary relations, European countries tightly

controlled their currencies, strictly limiting the degree to which private citizens could convert national money into gold or dollars

 The US removed most of its trade barriers but accepted

European and Japanese protection

 The US provided significant funds through the Marshal

plan

Post WW2 alternative models of

economic development:

 1 Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI): government

involvement (like that in W Europe and North America in the 19 th century) relied on trade barriers to stimulate

national industry in response to the first limitation of free markets, namely, inequality of participants)

 2 More radical: state intervention but also redistribution

of wealth and virtual elimination of private ownership largely addressing the second limitation of free markets, excesses in financial markets).

Two trends, undermined the Bretton

The push for the New Economic

International Order

 international economic regimes that would REGULATE

rather than entirely ABOLISH national interventions;

 greater access to OECD markets

 for aid similar to what the US had given to Europe;

 higher prices for exports

The end of the Breton Woods system:

 The Breton Woods System eventually broke down because

of a decline in the power and influence of the US.

 The end of the B-W system marked the end of the rules

dear to the US and opened up the room for the

reconstruction of the economic order

 This decline led to the switch to a regime of floating

exchange rates from 1971

What happened to alternative models?

1. The typical ISI economy went through periodic balance of

payments crises.The government restricted imports but there was an ongoing need for imported goods Spending chronically outpaced government revenue, and these budgets deficits were usually covered by printing money

2 The communist world also faced increased difficulties:

Economic growth in the centrally planned economies slowed continually over the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The push for the New Economic

International Order:

 The U.S imagined postwar international economic

institutions as progressively abolishing national restrictions

 States that had been wealthy before the War (colonial powers)

went along because the US gave the previously rich market states the opportunity to reconstruct their economies

(through the Marshall Plan)

 Latin American and the independent and colonial areas in

Asia and Africa accepted the system, because they had no choice (and were not politically organized at the time).

 Third World governments felt cheated out of the

trade-induced growth that the rich nations enjoyed in the 1950s and the1960s

Group 77

 It pressed for changes in the rules of the international economic system

to make it easier for poor countries to participate).

 Third world countries such as Argentina, Brazil, India, and Lebanon

argued for:

international economic regimes that would REGULATE rather than

ABOLISH national interventions;

greater access to OECD markets;

for aid similar to what the US had given to Europe.

 This set of proposals (put forth over the 1970s) came to be known as the

New International Economic Order (NIEO).

Things were getting complicated for the US…

 On top of this political pressure from the Third World

countries…

 Individual oil producers and, later OPEC as a whole,

jumped on the industrial West’s growing oil dependence.

 The problem was political

Two important material changes:

 First: the rise of the high-tech companies (Hewlett

Packard, Microsoft, ATT) increasingly interested in

global markets

 Second: there was growing popular concern about high

unemployment, slow growth, and inflation, which left voters and others open to new policies

The rise of “the supply-side” economics:

 All of these factors combined pushed a pendulum away

from Keynesian economics and towards freer markets

 Milton Friedman and his followers: Their approach came

to be called "market fundamentalism," since it saw "freer" markets as the solution for every economic problem

 You jump-start the economy by privatizing (UK), cutting

taxes, and deregulating

Reagan came into office in 1981 with

several objectives:

 Domestic level: antiinflationary policy

 International level: the push in the direction of regional

trade agreements The larger blocs: made exports

cheaper to produce, allowed firms to grow, made it

easier to attract foreign investment, and encouraged the consolidation of banks and corporations Regional

integration (the EU, NAFTA, Mercosur) in the 1990s

became an important component part of the overall

process of economic globalization

The Reagan administration tried to:

 1 undermine the Third World alliance;

 2 undermine the UN system;

 3 privilege institutions that encourage market discipline

on Third World development policies.

During the 1990s the issue was decided in favor of supporters of global integration

 From an economic point of view N America and W

Europe defined the world’s course (1/10 of the

population but half the world economy and 2/3 of world trade)

 There was hardly universal agreement on free trade, but

official policy came to accept it as a matter of course.

The Washington consensus:

 the use of international financial institutions (the IMF and

the World bank) to promote free markets and the supply side economics

International financial institutions

 promoted economic liberalization in the developing

world (things such as trade and capital markets) with a corresponding deregulation of all aspects of the

economy.

IMF (and the WB) structural adjustment programs required governments to:

 1 eliminate uncompetitive nationalized industries;

 2 cut subsidies to consumers and eliminate services

(essential food-stuffs, steep reductions in spending on health, education, and other social services)

 3 lift restrictions on capital movement

The direction of financial globalization will change in three important ways:

 First, Western finance is going to be regulated

 Second, the balance between state and market is going

to change in other economic areas.

 Third, the US is likely to lose its economic clout and

intellectual authority

International trade negotiations:

 The advanced industrial countries push the opening of the

markets in the developing countries to their industrial

products

 At the same time, they continue to keep their markets

closed to the products of the developing countries, such as textile and agriculture

 While they preach that developing countries should not

subsidize their industries, they continue to provide billions

in subsidies to their own farmers.

Official trade negotiations:

 The last time official trade negotiations were successful

was in 1994 the year when the World Trade Organization was created: 125 nations agreed to a significant drop in trade barriers.

 In 1999, the attempt to launch a new round of trade

negotiations crashed in Seattle

 In 2001, the trade ministers met again in Doha, Qatar, and

decided to initiate a new round that, they agreed, would be concluded in four years

Regionalism and Global Trade:

 The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum;

 The Association of South-East Asian Nations

 EU,

 NAFTA

 Mercosur

A surge in trade despite the failure of WTO negotiations for two reasons:

 Technological innovations—from the Internet to cargo

containers—lowered the costs of trading.

 Political environment more tolerant of openness