Understanding national-government policies regarding globalization: A trade-finance analysis

Abstract

Why different national governments have different policies regarding globalization? This is an important research topic of government and economics. In the paper, I analyze how different income groups have different attitudes towards globalization; and how such attitudes shape government policy. A standard example is that more openness in trade benefits the owners of a country's abundant factor, while reducing the income of the owners of the scarce factor. Welfare-state policy depends on which income group is politically dominant. The paper adopts the framework of a small open economy trading in goods and financial securities with the rest of the world, to provide a general-equilibrium analysis of income-based globalization attitudes for national welfare-state government policies. The analysis shows that different income groups have varied attitudes towards globalization, depending on trade-related and macro-related fundamentals. They are: (i) the degree of trade border frictions, (ii) the degree of international finance frictions, (iii) the relative factor abundance that determines the capital intensity of the country's exports; and, (iv) the domestic saving propensity on one hand, and the productivity of domestic investment, on the other hand-determining whether the country is a financial capital exporter or importer.