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Public debate is often mired in superficial arguments about "globalization." This insightful book by economist Ralph C. Bryant instead emphasizes that the world's nations need to craft better middle-ground compromises to improve governance and manage increasing integration. Individual nations, Bryant argues, should fashion a balance between local autonomy and external openness, avoiding the extremes of rigid localism and unfettered openness. And nations need to act together collectively. Cooperative governance can encourage orderliness that mitigates disarray undermining mutual goals.
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List of contents
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Analytic Fundamentals: Identity Spaces, Decision Spaces, Jurisdictions, Governing Authorities
Externalities, Market Failures, Public Goods, Governance Failures
Trade-offs
Benefits of External Openness
Costs and Risks of External Openness
Distribution of the Net Benefits and Net Costs of External Openness
Tensions between Local Autonomy and External Openness
De Jure Sovereignty and De Facto Autonomy
3. Localism
Insiders and Outsiders
Simultaneously Looking Inward and Outward
4. Border Buffers
General Guidelines
Border Buffers for Goods, Services, and Financial Transactions
Localist Diversity and a Level Playing Field?
International Minimum Standards for All Jurisdictions?
5. Cross-Border Migration of People
6. External Imbalances and Exchange Rates
Imbalances in Cross-Border Interactions
Trade-off Choices for a Nation's Financial Governance
Exchange-Rate Flexibility
7. Cross-Border Governance and International Cooperation
Employ Border Buffers as Hostile Policy Instruments?
Global Climate Change: Progress Depends on International Cooperative Agreements
Cross-Border Comity, Historical Progress
8. Summing Up: Crafting a Balanced Compromise
Postscript: Emergence of the Coronavirus Pandemic
References
Index
About the author
Ralph C. Bryant has been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution since 1976. He served as director of the Division of International Finance at the Federal Reserve Board and the international economist for the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee. Bryant's books include
Turbulent Waters: Cross-Border Finance and International Governance (Brookings, 2003).
Summary
It's no secret that the nearly 200 nations in the world have a hodge-podge of governance systems. What's the problem with this disparate nature of how governments operate? The answer, Ralph Bryant says, is that disorderly and competing systems produce faulty decisions that cause damage within countries, across borders between them.
