Suggested Readings
A good place to start is the conference essay by Tom Friedman of the The New York Times, titled "A Manifesto for the Fast World." (The New York Times, March 1999). A native Minnesotan, Friedman is a foreign correspondent and columnist for the Times and the author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, an influential study of the pros and cons of globalization and a great introduction to the topic. This essay can be found in the Nobel Conference Program or by searching the New York Times Archives.
Readings by or about conference participants:
Robert Mundell
• "Mundell Wins Nobel: Professor an Influential Advocate for Single Currency to Unify Europe," ABCNEWS.com, Oct. 13, 1999.
• "Canadian Economist Robert Mundell Wins Nobel Prize in Economics," FOX Market Wire, October 13, 1999
• "The International Monetary System in the 21st Century: Could Gold Make a Comeback?" Lecture delivered at St. Vincent College, March 1997
Jeffrey Sachs
• "The IMF and the Asian flu," The American Prospect, No. 37, 1998.
• "Helping the World’s Poorest," The Economist, Aug. 14, 1999.
• "The Russian Bailout: A Messy Policy Gets Messier," Project-Syndicate, September 1998
Joseph Stiglitz
• "What I Learned at the World Economic Crisis," New Republic, April 2000
• "March Madness," editorial, New Republic, May 2000.
• "Silencing Joseph Stiglitz," Salon.Com May 2, 2000.
Jagdish Bhagwati
• "Why Nike Is on the Right Track," The Financial Times, May 1, 2000
• "The Seattle Fiasco: President Clinton’s Failure or Triumph?" The Washington Post, December 1999.
• "But, Mr. Clinton, Globalization Already Has a Human Face," The Financial Times, August 17, 1999.
• "Economic Freedom: Prosperity and Social Progress," keynote Speech delivered to the Conference on Economic Freedom and Development in Tokyo, June 17-18, 1999.
Amitai Etzioni
• "After Economic, What?" IntellectualCapital.com, June 24, 1999
• "When Does Global Good Outweigh Our Own Sovereignty?" USA Today, December 8, 1999
• "How to Make a Humane Market," New Statesman, November 20, 1998
• "Communitarian Economics: How to Cut the Deficit and Put America Back to Work," Challenge (November-December 1992), pp. 53-55.
John B. Cobb Jr.
• "Ethics, Economics, and Free Trade," Religion Online – "The view of rationality in economics is unethical. Rationality is identified with self-interest. Concern for fairness and for upbuilding community is not viewed as rational within the system. The result is that the more people are affected by the study of dominant forms of economic theory, the less they are likely to be interested in fairness, in community wellbeing, and even in honesty. Unfortunately, an increasing portion of the business community has been socialized into thinking in economic ways. This also weakens the market, which depends for its healthy functioning on the integrity of the players. As individuals are increasingly persuaded that rationality consists in private self-interest, the firms that employ them suffer as well."
• "Global Market or Community," Religion Online – "As a citizen of the United States, I find myself in any case somewhat skeptical of the ability of a world government to effectively deal with the needs of workers. Our experience has been that corporations and their supporters are far more effective in electing and influencing legislators than are labor unions or the general public. As wealth is increasingly concentrated in their hands, the difficulty of reversing this trend grows greater. Meanwhile, the breakdown of community has led to such alienation that a majority of those eligible to vote do not do so. It is my judgment that a world government would seem even more remote to most people and be even more subject to undue influence from corporations organized on a global basis, controlling most of the media, and possessing vast resources."
