The Global Economy
November 1998

November Article Abstracts

Title: Global Rules for Global Finance
Author: Ethan B. Kapstein
"To the extent that international supervision of the financial system exists, it has often sent perverse signals to bankers and investors, and probably governments as well, about the existence of lender of last resort facilities. As a result, the international financial system is a reckless place in which accidents inevitably happen. If that is the general diagnosis, what is the cure?"

Title: The Asian Crisis and the Global Economy:Causes, Consequences, and Cure
Author: Robert Wade
"Until Asian governments adopt expansionary policies, take control of short-term capital movements, and cooperate regionally, the crisis is likely to drag on and on, like water torture, bringing poverty and insecurity to hundreds of millions of people and turning parts of Asia into a dependency of the imf and its number one shareholder. Recent policy changes suggest that this lesson is slowly being learned."

Title: Managing the Global Economy's Managers
Author: Peter Morici
"Curtailing United States participation" in the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund "will not address the costs and risks imposed on American businesses and workers by unfair foreign competition. . . United States interests can best be served by better equipping the wto and imf to establish and enforce rules for global markets that promote more open competition, respect for the environment and workers' rights, and transparency in financial transactions."

Title: A Fourth Way? The Latin American Alternative to Neoliberalism
Author: Lucy Conger
A group of "Latin intellectuals and left-leaning politicians" is determined to put Latin America on a new course to prosperity and equality. "The group's goal of rolling back the Washington Consensus and ushering in a model based on productive investment and a democratized economy sounds like a pipe dream. But time and trouble may be on its side."

Title: India's Other Path: Disorganized Capitalism in Surat
Author: Garrett Menning
"If you asked a typical art silk weaver in Surat about the importance of rapid turnaround, lean manufacturing, or outsourcing, he would probably have no idea what you were talking about. Nonetheless, these are central ingredients of local industrial success. It may be fair to say that the humble powerloom weaver of Surat is as far out on the cutting edge of modern capitalism as any mba-toting venture capitalist."

Title: Book Reviews
A Global Economic Roundup

Title: The Month in Review
An international chronology of events in September, country by country, day by day.

Title: Perspectives
Building a Better Umbrella