[German pamphlets on free trade and protectionism].

Ueber den gegenwärtigen Stand der Frage der Schutzzölle / von A. Christ -- Schutzzölle oder Handelsfreiheit? / von Wilhelm Schmidlin -- Handelsminister auf sechs Stunden von Adam Riese dem Jüngeren / Verein für Handelsfreiheit zu Hamburg gekront -- Die Zollconferenz zu Berlin, die preussische Erklärung vom 7. Juni und die Deutsche Zolleinigung -- Rede des Abgeordneten Frank, über den Antrag des Abg. Müller-Melchiors, die Reugestaltung des Deutschen Zollvereins betr., gehalten in der 190 Sissung der zweiten Rammer der Landstände am 4. October 1852. Rede des freiherrn von Schenck in der Sisstung der ersten Rammer der Stände am 13. November 1852, über den Antrag des Abgeordneten Müller-Melchiors, wegen Reugestaltung des Zollvereins -- Die Zollconferenz zu Wien in ihren nothwendigen Folgen für das gesammte Deutschland.

Wage matters & globalization: South Florida's low-wage immigrant plant nursery workers and business protectionism in the age of neoliberalism

Ornamental plant production in the State of Florida is an anomaly with respect to current theories of globalization and particularly their explanation of the employment of low-wage, immigrant labor. Those theories dictate that unskilled jobs that do not need to be performed within highly developed countries are outsourced to where labor is cheaper and more flexible. However, the State of Florida remains an important site of ornamental plant production in the US amidst a global economic environment of outsourcing and transnational corporate expansion. This dissertation relies on 50 semi-structured interviews with insiders of the Florida plant nursery industry, focus groups, and participant observation to explain how US trade, labor, and migration policy-making at local levels are not removed from larger global processes taking place in the world since the 1970s. In Florida, elite market players of the plant nursery industry have been able to resist global trends in free trade, operating instead in a protected market. They have done this by appealing to scientific justifications and through arbitrary implementations of neoliberal ideology that keeps small and middle range business alive, while maintaining a seemingly endless supply of marginalized and exploited low-wage, immigrant workers.^

Wage Matters & Globalization: South Florida’s Low-Wage Immigrant Plant Nursery Workers and Business Protectionism in the Age of Neoliberalism

Ornamental plant production in the State of Florida is an anomaly with respect to current theories of globalization and particularly their explanation of the employment of low-wage, immigrant labor. Those theories dictate that unskilled jobs that do not need to be performed within highly developed countries are outsourced to where labor is cheaper and more flexible. However, the State of Florida remains an important site of ornamental plant production in the US amidst a global economic environment of outsourcing and transnational corporate expansion. This dissertation relies on 50 semi-structured interviews with insiders of the Florida plant nursery industry, focus groups, and participant observation to explain how US trade, labor, and migration policy-making at local levels are not removed from larger global processes taking place in the world since the 1970s. In Florida, elite market players of the plant nursery industry have been able to resist global trends in free trade, operating instead in a protected market. They have done this by appealing to scientific justifications and through arbitrary implementations of neoliberal ideology that keeps small and middle range business alive, while maintaining a seemingly endless supply of marginalized and exploited low-wage, immigrant workers.

A Câmara dos Deputados durante o auge do desenvolvimentismo

Nesta dissertação, o objetivo é avaliar o comportamento dos membros da Câmara dos Deputados frente às propostas desenvolvimentistas durante o governo de Juscelino Kubitschek. Atualmente, muito se discute sobre o papel do Legislativo durante o período de auge do desenvolvimentismo no Brasil. Se as interpretações clássicas apontavam o Executivo como núcleo decisório, reinterpretações têm emergido em direção à hipótese de que o Congresso não esteve excluído desse processo. Dessa forma, as decisões concernentes a políticas desenvolvimentistas não apenas teriam sido expressão do Executivo, mas também das maiorias congressistas. O mecanismo pelo qual isso teria se tornado possível foi o de delegação de poder. De modo a reassegurar a presença de uma maioria desenvolvimentista na Câmara dos Deputados, o trabalho analisará o posicionamento de congressistas quanto a votações de conteúdo desenvolvimentista ao longo da fase de ápice das controvérsias do desenvolvimento brasileiro, com maior ênfase no período do governo de Juscelino Kubitschek. Tais votações serão catalogadas após exposições a respeito de questões relacionadas com o desenvolvimentismo e serão selecionadas pelo seu conteúdo. Os temas considerados mais importantes são: política alfandegária, infraestrutura, integração regional, isenções, subsídios e crédito.

China's Sovereign Wealth Funds: Problem or Panacea?

China’s impressive economic growth has led to the accumulation of massive financial assets. The emergence of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), as a governmental investment device for its excessive foreign reserves, symbolizes a major rebalancing of economic power. With its investment portfolios drastically diversified for well-established financial institutions as well as some strategic sectors, a seminal debate seems centered on whether China’s SWFs are in furtherance of purely commercial or geopolitically strategic purposes. Under the sophisticated hard laws associated with international initiatives, it is unlikely that the SWFs-related investment would distort the global financial system, and genuinely threaten national security, which assumption may only exist at a hypothetical level. The potential protectionism would inevitably retard the world economy’s recovery, were it not to be proportionately addressed. A most significant necessity appears to be to strike a proportionate balance between sustaining the credibility of open investment environment and efficiently minimizing implications of SWFs political arenas.