The Effect of Globalization on Financial Development in the MENA Region

This paper provides new evidence that sheds light on the effect of globalization on financial development using data from 9 MENA countries over the period 1991?C2007. The empirical results based on the Panel-data Vector Autoregression and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares methods reveal that globalization affects financial development and economic growth in the MENA region while globalization does not play any role in institutional reforms, which promote financial development and economic growth. Hence, governments can play a crucial role in improving the necessary economic conditions for the benefits of globalization to be felt in the MENA region. Also institutional reform policies can be important for policy makers who are attempting to accelerate globalization and financial development.     

Remapping social inequalities in an age of climate change: for a cosmopolitan renewal of sociology*

Climate change globalizes and radicalizes social inequality; it exacerbates inequalities of rich and poor, core and periphery, and at the same time dissolves them in the face of a common threat to humanity. Climate change combines with the inequalities arising from globalization, decoupling the producers and subjects of risk. Remapping inequality in the age of climate change and globalization therefore requires taking account of the unbounding of both equality and inequality, and an awareness of the end of the opposition between society and nature, one of the founding principles of sociology. The article outlines four theses of inequality, climate change and globalization, and concludes with the question: what does a cosmopolitan renewal of the social sciences mean and how will it be possible?     

Teaching Globalization to Social Work Students: In and Out of the Classroom

This paper was part of qualitative research that sought to explore motivations of Masters-level students (n = 53) in taking an elective course in international social work at a large public university in the Southeastern US. A review of the literature includes the foundational aspects of globalization and its relationship with social work education. Through content analysis, results show comportment of students' stated motivations for taking the course and the contemporaneous literature on globalization. Themes expressed are the historical context of globalization, concern about global inequalities, and the varying impacts of globalization around the world. Discussion is directed towards exploring ways of effectively infusing globalization content in the social work curricula.     

Linking power and inequality in global value chains

There is increasing interest in the study of globalization on whether the emergence and consolidation of global value chains (GVCs) have exacerbated inequalities within and across nations and/or how GVCs may be leveraged to mitigate them. Although power asymmetries have been identified as a central factor shaping (un)successful GVC participation, dominant discourses still disregard the links between power and inequality or use these concepts interchangeably. In this article, we provide an analytical approach to GVC-related inequalities (within, along and through value chains) and examine how they may co-evolve with different types of power (bargaining, demonstrative, institutional and constitutive). We apply this approach to the case study of the hake value chain in South Africa to illustrate how existing inequalities are manifested, challenged, mitigated or exacerbated—and draw an agenda for future research.     

On the links between globalization and poverty

This article surveys the evidence on the linkages between globalization and poverty, drawing on a new NBER study that has been completed under the direction of one of the authors. We focus on two measures of globalization: trade and international capital flows. Past researchers have argued that global economic integration should help the poor since poor countries have a comparative advantage in producing goods that use unskilled labor. Our first conclusion is that such a simple interpretation of general equilibrium trade models is misleading. Second, the evidence suggests that the poor are more likely to share in the gains from globalization when there are complementary policies in place.Third, trade and foreign investment reforms have produced benefits for the poor in exporting sectors and sectors that receive foreign investment. Fourth, financial crises are very costly to the poor. Finally, the collected evidence suggests that globalization produces both winners and losers among the poor. The fact that some poor individuals are made worse off by trade or financial integration underscores the need for carefully targeted safety nets. We conclude the article by identifying a number of unanswered research questions regarding the impact of globalization on poverty.     

The Real Origins of the Global Crisis

In this paper we present an interpretation of the economic and financial crisis that considers crucial the issue of income distribution (Krugman 2007; Piketty and Saez 2003; Reynolds 2008), a question that is instead ignored by more widespread interpretations. In fact, we ask what lies behind the disaster of the subprime loans and, if a more thorough view is taken, it seems clear that the true causes of the crisis lead back to income distribution, in other words the enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor. This consideration is fundamental. If the crisis were merely financial then (perhaps) the policies of financial adjustment that are currently in place might be sufficient. If instead the crisis is due to more serious causes, and nothing is more serious than distribution inequalities, then the cure must be much more profound (and difficult). In other words, the crisis will be long and severe until such inequalities are reduced, a difficult task when weighed against public intervention in aid of financial institutions.     

Globalisierung und die Veränderung sozialer Ungleichheiten in modernen Gesellschaften

This article deals with the effects of globalization on individual life courses and employment careers and the resulting changes in patterns of social inequality in modern societies. Empirically, we draw back to results from the international research project GLOBALIFE which studied the effects of globalization on modern life courses for the first time. The results show that the effects of globalization on individual life courses show marked differentiation with regards to specific life course phases: while especially the employment of mid-career men remained considerably stable under globalization, the careers of young adults, mid-career women as well as late-career workers underwent significant alterations. At the same time, results from the GLOABLIFE study indicate that the changes induced by globalization have not yet led to identical results at the national level. Globalization appears to be differentially filtered by deeply embedded and path-dependent national institutions. These “institutional packages” entail variable forms of labour market “flexibilisation” which themselves differentially shape patterns of social inequality in modern societies: While Scandinavian countries have largely succeeded in limiting an increase in social inequality under globalization through active public welfare engagement, globalization has led to a significant amplification of social inequalities in other regime types, either between labour market insiders and outsiders (in conservative and Southern European countries) or between individuals with different human capital resources (in liberal countries).     

Financial literacy education: An opportunity for colleges and sociology

Financial literacy represents the knowledge necessary to manage one's financial affairs in a way that contributes to overall wellbeing, yet financial literacy and financial education are understudied in sociology. While emerging adults have low rates of financial literacy overall, this article focuses on college students due to increasing college access and student loan debt. Based on the limited literature that assesses college financial literacy education, it appears that these types of programs may serve to advance college students' financial knowledge. Additional mechanisms that serve to develop college students' financial literacy include parent socialization, banking experience, and high school financial education programs. However, not everyone has the same access to these resources. Thus, given the magnitude of the US student debt crisis and persistent economic inequalities, college financial literacy education may prove beneficial for all students, particularly those from economically vulnerable backgrounds. This article serves as an invitation to sociologists to consider financial literacy education as both a worthwhile pursuit in application and as a research topic.     

Gender,tribe and development: a case study of the Reang tribal community in Tripura (Northeast India)

The article critically examines the gendered impacts of state-led development among the Reang tribal community in Tripura (Northeast India) and outlines causes of gender-based inequalities that affect Reang women’s ability to engage in livelihood, achieve financial independence and participate in political affairs of the state. The article outlines two interlinked arguments. First, gender-based inequalities are not adequately addressed by the postcolonial Indian state which tends to homogenise members of tribal communities through development policies by privileging ethnicity over gender. Second, gender-based inequalities are also not adequately addressed within the Reang community highlighting complex intra-tribal dynamics wherein differential notion of inequalities among the Reangs and position of certain influential actors within the community determines which issues are addressed and which are marginalised.     

伊斯兰信用经济思想探析

基于公正与平等理念的伊斯兰信用思想作为伊斯兰教经济思想的重要内涵,彰显了丰富的伦理内涵,但在全球化、金融一体化的浪潮中亦呈现出其阻滞伊斯兰社会金融发展、滞缓其全球化进程的因子,凸显了宗教伦理与经济发展的二元张力。伊斯兰教在留存其信用经济思想丰富伦理内涵的同时,也应依据创制精神对其加以阐释,以更好地应对全球化金融浪潮。     

The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Response to Peak Oil

ABSTRACT

After the two-fold crises of the liberal world order in the first decade of the twenty-first century, including the debacle of the Global War on Terror and the global financial crisis around 2008, we are witnessing a combined crisis of US hegemony and the transnational moment, along with the explosion of populism across the Atlantic world. In this context, this research not only analyses how the United States has designed and maintained the liberal interstate order and globalization but also the way the hegemon proactively starts to destroy its cross-national project today. Therefore, I aim to fathom the future of globalization by interrogating the current US state's key strategies that express America's changing national identity and self-role conception under shifting structural imperatives from unipolarity to the emerging multipolar world.     

Introduction to special section on blockchains and financial globalization

This special section shifts analytical attention onto efforts undertaken by dispersed sets of actors operating in online communities to mobilize a novel internet‐based technology that mysteriously appeared at the height of market volatility in 2008. Applications of blockchain technologies and the challenges presented to longstanding patterns of financial globalization are analysed by a group of scholars with backgrounds in anthropology, political science and sociology. This introductory article first elaborates what blockchain technologies consist of before foreshadowing the insights that the following interdisciplinary investigations yield for comprehending the implications that technological changes pose for global finance specifically and globalization more generally.     

The gendered frontiers of globalization

Women are rarely to be found in the elite international corporate structure of the globalizing economy. They are, however, an important component of the new mobile global labor force. This article examines the pros and cons of economic globalization for women; in particular, why so many women are disproportionately disadvantaged by the globalizing forces associated with the neoliberal international economy. It also outlines some ways in which women's organizing at the grassroots, national and international levels is working toward efforts to diminish gender hierarchies which have the effect of disempowering women and contributing to economic inequalities more generally.     

国际经济形势、中国经济结构转型和国际合作

结构调整是中国近年来经济改革的主题。但自从金融危机发生以来，中国的政策重点不得不转移到应对危机。经过一年多的努力，中国已经从金融危机的阴影中走出来，结构调整势必再次提上议事日程。国际经济形势的变化对中国的结构转型也正产生着越来越大的压力。因为中国经济和世界经济的一体化，国际经济环境影响着中国内部结构调整，而内部结构调整也必须考虑到国际经济环境。在充分考虑各方面因素情况下，对中国的调整策略进行深入分析。     

To risk or derisk the soul of the university? The peril in educational globalization

Educational globalization is taking place amid the competing narratives of hyperglobalization and deglobalization. This article shows that these narratives fail to capture what is really happening. Aggregate empirical data for the period since the 2008 financial crisis evidence neither an appreciable rise nor a substantial decline in the overall level of globalization. Against this backdrop, a grid of risks that market-based university reforms pose to the soul of the university can be garnered from five scholars’ comments on the author of this article’s book Implausible Dream: The World-Class University and Repurposing Higher Education. The risk factors are bracketed under the following headings: control mechanisms and diminishing reflexivity, misrule, numerical governance, the ethos of competitiveness, and the conventional organization of knowledge. This calculus of risks has important implications for crafting strategies for derisking the core purposes of higher education institutions. They revolve around a central motif: strengthening the democratic tradition at universities.     

Young Mothers’ Experiences of Receiving the Baby Bonus: A Qualitative Study

The year 2014 marked the abolition of the Baby Bonus and its replacement with a substantially reduced parenting payment. While often criticised as “middle-class welfare,” or publicly denounced due to its purported misuse by disadvantaged mothers, this paper argues that the Baby Bonus provided valuable financial assistance to families experiencing high financial stress. To investigate young women's experience of receiving the Baby Bonus, 19 semistructured interviews were conducted with young mothers in Melbourne who had recently had babies. Many were experiencing financial stress and this payment provided much needed financial support for the basic costs arising from having a baby. Several mothers perceived work as a luxury that was out of reach due to high childcare costs relative to their earning capacity and therefore saw Paid Parental Leave as a further privilege unavailable to them. Our results suggest that while the concerns of policymakers to achieve the best use of scarce resources are critical, it should also be acknowledged that the policy change may have serious implications for many young mothers and may exacerbate disadvantage, and young mothers’ sense of alienation, ultimately leading to greater inequalities.     

The Strategic Manipulation of Transnational Temporalities

Abstract

While it is now widely recognized that globalization is socially constructed, time is often still seen as a natural unalterable force. Drawing on the literature on the social construction of time, we explore the role of human agency in the interaction of time and globalization by developing the concept of temporal systems. These systems are assemblages that bring together temporal artefacts such as clocks and schedules, the temporalities of the natural world and the body, and social practices involving agency, power, and organization. We then explore, through four illustrative examples, how such systems interact with and constitute globalization. These examples are: the initial emergence and contemporary operation of world standard time; the manipulation of the future and speed in global financial markets; the rise of informal international organizations in global governance; and the role of temporality in the strategic behaviour of multinational corporations.     

The transition from college to work during the great recession: employment,financial, and identity challenges

This study examines the challenges that recent college graduates face in a hard-hit US region during the Great Recession. In their poignant and sometimes heartbreaking perceptions of their ‘biggest challenges,’ graduates vividly illustrate the negative implications of degree completion during the recession. Based on an analysis of both closed and open-ended survey data of Michigan's 2012 graduates, we find that women and first generation college graduates fare the worst in terms of their employment status, debt and income levels, and subjective assessments of job opportunities and financial stress. In contrast, men, especially those whose parents have at least a bachelor's degree, were more likely than their counterparts to report that their ‘biggest challenge’ since graduation was linked with making the transition into adult roles. Taken together, these findings suggest widespread difficulty after graduating from college during the Great Recession, and the ways in which these difficulties are linked with gender and class inequalities.     

Practising social work in a context of austerity: experiences of public sector social workers in Greece

Since the 1980s and within a context of neoliberal globalization, the welfare state provision in many countries has been affected adversely by austerity and social spending cuts that have intensified since the last global financial crisis of 2008. A country that has been particularly harshly affected is Greece. This paper draws on interviews with public sector social workers in Greece and presents their perceptions of the consequences of austerity/social spending cuts on their work. The research findings of this study suggest that, within the context of austerity, social workers are facing a number of challenges and tensions. The paper argues that these tensions and challenges are local manifestations of the global conditions of neoliberal globalization and as such they have relevance for other countries. Furthermore, it argues that this understanding needs to inform the actions of social workers. It is important for these tensions and challenges to be contextualized within the socio-economic conditions in which they arise in order for austerity and social spending cuts to become a locus of intervention.