Some Links
My Mercatus Center colleague Christine McDaniel explains that “globalization helps women thrive.” Three slices:
The ability to move goods, services, capital, people, and, maybe most importantly, technology across borders has improved the lives of people worldwide. Evidence reveals how much globalization has benefited women in their different roles in society—as workers, business owners, consumers, and in the household. International trade and investment have led to higher wages for women and lower living costs for their households. Globalization has drawn women out of the informal economy and into the formal economy, giving them access to better working conditions, societal benefits, and pensions for old age. Cross-border data flows and technological developments have helped women start and grow their businesses. Globalization is not a panacea, however. There is an outsized role for better domestic policies that let women take advantage of the opportunities that come with globalization instead of getting in the way. Even so, further improving women’s lives means more globalization, not less.
Countries with greater openness to trade often experience higher levels of gender equality. This connection is partly due to the association between international trade and the increased educational attainment and skill development among women and girls. For women in developing countries, globalization means more opportunities to increase their own skills and wages, participate in the labor force, and provide for themselves and the well-being of their families.
Across developing countries, firms that engage in international trade employ more women. According to a joint report by the World Bank and World Trade Organization, women are 33.2 percent of the workforce of firms that trade internationally compared with 24.3 percent of nonexporting firms. A similar pattern emerges for firms that participate in global value chains (GVCs): Women are 36.7 percent of the workforce of GVC firms and 37.8 percent of the workforce of foreign-owned firms, compared to 10.9 percent and 12.2 percent for non-GVC and domestically owned firms, respectively.
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For all consumers, globalization has generally meant more variety and lower prices, especially on goods. Since the mid-1980s, when international trade began to increase sharply, tradable items, on average, have exhibited lower inflation than nontradable items. Detailed analysis of goods and services from 2010 to 2015 shows that the more tradable a good or service was, the lower inflation it experienced, benefiting all consumers. But there is one area where women have not quite gotten as many benefits: clothing. US tariffs are higher on women’s clothing than men’s, and the difference in some areas is discernible. A tariff is an import tax, and the tariffs on women’s overcoats, suits, shirts, and undergarments are higher than they are on those men’s products. According to Arthur Gailes and others, women pay approximately $2.77 billion each year more than men on clothing due to tariffs.
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Women need more globalization, not less. In developing countries, firms that engage in trade hire more women, and globalization has helped to draw women out of the informal economy into the formal economy, where they have access to better working conditions and social protections. However, governments in developing countries and emerging markets need to enact gender-neutral laws and policies and change cultural norms so that women can take full advantage of globalization.
In advanced economies like the United States, women-owned businesses have leveraged digital platforms and fintechs to help close the gender gap in exporting and firm performance. During the past three decades, women have increased their participation in the labor force even in the face of economic changes brought on by trade and technology. Foreign direct investment can transplant corporate culture in ways that improve labor outcomes for women and the overall economy. Over the past decade, however, the number of trade restrictions has increased tenfold, which threatens to undo these gains from globalization. A recommitment to openness, eliminating remaining barriers to cross-border flows, and restraining protectionist tendencies will help to ensure women continue to benefit from globalization.
David Henderson review Scott Hodge’s new book, Taxocracy. Two slices:
Did you know that (as of this writing) 75 percent of the overall burden of US tariffs is on apparel? Or that of this burden, 66 percent is on women’s apparel? It’s not just because women buy more clothing than men; it’s also because the US government purposely sets tariff rates higher on women’s clothing (15.1 percent)than on men’s clothing (11.9 percent.) That’s one of many interesting nuggets you’ll find in Scott Hodge’s important new book Taxocracy.
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One of the best parts of the book, and most informative to me, is Hodge’s discussion of what he calls “tariff engineering.” The idea is that in response to US tariffs, producers in other countries change their products just enough to get those products into a lower tariff category. One example is shoes versus bedroom slippers. For some reason, the tariff rate on shoes is higher than the rate on bedroom slippers. Converse, which manufactures its shoes overseas, adds a light felt to the soles of its tennis shoes, allowing them to be categorized as slippers. The ultimate buyer finds that the fuzzy bottom wears off quickly. So, both seller and buyer gain, but they do so because of the differential taxes on imports. Without those taxes (tariffs), they would gain even more. Hodge explains in a footnote that this all came about because of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
Probably the most infamous example of Democratic deception concerned inflation. First there was denial. Then the American people were told it was transitory. Then they were told it was licked. “Bidenomics is working” wasn’t a winning appeal to workers who saw that their paychecks weren’t going as far.
The irony is that when Democrats decided to go with Mr. Biden as their 2020 presidential candidate, it was because the alternative was self-described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. Then Mr. Biden got himself elected, and suddenly comparisons to FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society were all the rage. It likely didn’t hurt that such comparisons fed Mr. Biden’s ego by making his presidency sound more consequential than Barack Obama’s.
Now it is all unraveling, and everyone’s dumping on Mr. Biden for not getting out sooner. Mr. Biden doesn’t see it that way, of course. He insists that the party’s mistake was ousting the only man who had ever beaten Mr. Trump.
GMU Econ alum Paul Mueller asks if Gen Z has gotten a raw deal.
Jay Herndon looks back at Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Drama.
Woke lunacy is still with us. (HT David Lips) A slice:
Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, added: “A university that decides to put a trigger warning on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey has become morally disoriented to the point that it has lost the plot.”
Jonathan Turley reports “how a censorship campaign failed to kill a COVID origin theory.” A slice:
One fact, however, is already well established. The suppression of the lab theory and the targeting of dissenting scientists show the true cost of censorship and viewpoint intolerance.
The very figures claiming to battle “disinformation” were suppressing opposing views that have now been vindicated as credible. It was not only the lab theory. In my recent book, I discuss how signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were fired or disciplined by their schools or associations for questioning COVID-19 policies.
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