Volume 6, Issue 2

In this article we present two composite indices of globalization. The first is based on the Kearney/Foreign Policy magazine and the second is obtained from principal component analysis. They indicate which countries have become most global and show how globalization has developed over time. The indices are composed of four components: economic integration, personal contact, technology and political engagement, each generated from a number of variables. A breakdown of the index into major components provides possibilities to identify sources of globalization and associate it with economic policy measures. The empirical results show that a low rank in the globalization process is due to political and personal factors with limited possibility for the developing countries to affect. The high ranked developed countries share similar patterns in distribution of various components.

The choice of targets for terrorist attacks is often considered to be random or illogical. In other cases targets are seen as being chosen for their symbolic importance to the audience the terrorists are seeking to reach or to indicate that no area of the country is safe. Terrorist groups, however, also choose their targets because of the economic impact that the attacks will have. There are patterns in economic attacks since different groups choose different kinds of targets. There may be increases in economic targeting, especially in the tourism sector where attacks create economic hardship and to reduce revenues for the governments. Foreign investment projects have also become frequent targets because of their economic potential for increasing government capacities. Trade activities and foreign aid projects have also become targets. In an increasingly global economy, such attacks have an even greater potential for destabilization effects.

This study empirically examines the effectiveness of Fed intervention on the USD/DM exchange market using an event study approach. The event window is defined as 4 (8) days prior/post an intervention. Based on the empirical analysis, the results show that when the Fed follows an "against the wind" policy, exchange rate movements are smoothed and may switch direction. The results are robust and hold for different event window definitions and sample ranges. To test whether the results are due to the exchange rate movement itself, we conduct a simple test using customer trades by the Fed. The results do not exhibit a systematic pattern. We also find that a joint intervention has a stronger impact on the exchange rate level when the Fed buys US dollars. The policy implication of our findings is that intervention in foreign exchange markets on the part of the Fed to impact the value of the US dollar is a viable policy option.

WTO-led trade liberalisation in environmental services is often seen as having considerable potential for generating 'win-win' outcomes for the economy and the environment. Despite this, progress in liberalising environmental services within the GATS framework has been limited. This paper argues that a major barrier to progress in environmental services liberalisation is uncertainty about the development impact of environmental services liberalisation in developing countries. We develop this argument using the example of water services, where market opening needs to be accompanied by effective domestic regulatory measures. The paper argues that uncertainty on the interpretation of the GATS rules on domestic regulation acts as a further constraint on countries' willingness to make new commitments for trade liberalisation in environmental services. The final section of the paper makes a number of proposals for `accompanying policies' that may be needed to be adopted if progress is to be made in meeting the Doha Development Agenda's commitment to the reduction or elimination of barriers to trade in environmental services.

The deteriorating economic position of low-skilled workers relative to high-skilled workers appears to be one harmful effect of the economic globalization that took place during the 1980s and 1990s. In the present paper, we perform a time series investigation for Canada using as the dependent variable the relative wages of production and non-production workers in the manufacturing sector between 1970 and 2001. The independent variables include R&D, union density, immigration, imports from non-OECD countries, foreign direct investment, capital labor ratio, and number of workers in each group. The results show that the R&D expenditures and union density are two important variables in the explanation of the widening wage gap. The effects of immigration, imports, and FDI on wage inequality are found to be moderate.