Frederic S Mishkin: Globalization - a force for good?
Remarks by Mr Frederic S Mishkin, Member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve
System, at the Weissman Center Distinguished Lecture Series, Baruch College, New York,
12 October 2006.
* * *
It is a great pleasure, for very personal reasons, to be here at Baruch College to deliver my first
speech as a Federal Reserve Governor. My now-deceased father, Sidney Mishkin, whom I still miss
every day, proudly graduated more than seventy years ago from Baruch, then called City College.
Indeed, you might have noticed the Sidney Mishkin Gallery when you came into the building. The
gallery was part of a gift that my father made to this institution upon his death fifteen years ago. The
education he got at Baruch during the depths of the Great Depression - attending class at night
because he had to work to support not only himself but also his parents - helped give him the
opportunity to become a successful businessman. I hope that the students here will likewise take
advantage of the opportunities bestowed by their education and make important contributions to our
economy.
Now, let me turn to the topic at hand: Can more globalization - in particular, financial globalization - be
a force for good?
The globalization of trade and information over the past half century has lifted vast numbers of the
world's people out of extreme poverty. Despite the doom and gloom that you often hear, world
economic growth since the Second World War has been at the highest pace ever recorded. What we
are seeing in countries that are export oriented, and thus able to take advantage of the present age of
globalization, is a reduction in poverty and a convergence of income per capita toward
industrialcountry levels. In India and China, for example, globalization in recent years has lifted the incomes of
more than 1 billion people above the levels of extreme poverty.
Although economic globalization has come a long way, in one particular dimension - finance - it is
very far from complete. As documented in the superb book by Maurice Obstfeld and Alan Taylor,
Global Capital Markets, financial globalization has made its greatest strides in rich countries. Gross
international capital flows, which have risen enormously in recent years, move primarily among rich
countries. The exchange of assets in these flows is undertaken to a large extent to enable individuals
and businesses to diversify their portfolios, putting some of their eggs in the baskets of other rich
countries. International capital is generally not flowing to poor countries and is thus not enhancing their
development.
The gross amount of capital flowing each year to emerging-market economies increased dramatically
in the 1990s and is now more than $600 billion. That amount may sound like a lot, but it is only
oneseventh of total international capital flows excluding official reserves. The situation is even more
remarkable when one adds into the picture the capital flows out of developing countries, especially the
governmental acquisition of international reserves; then we see that emerging-market economies
have, on net, actually been sending capital to rich countries. The United States is currently running
very large trade and current account deficits - more than $800 billion - because Americans are buying
more goods and services from abroad than they are selling overseas. These deficits are being
financed by the foreign acquisition of U.S. assets, especially bonds, with emerging-market economies
providing the United States with about $300 billion per year. The Chinese government, for example,
has accumulated nearly $1 trillion of foreign assets; much of this is invested in the United States, and
China is now one of the largest holders of U.S. Treasury securities in the world.
Also remarkable is that capital flows from rich countries to developing countries relative to total capital
are far smaller than they were in the first age of globalization, during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. By 1914, about half of the stock of capital in Argentina was supplied by rich
foreign countries, particularly the United Kingdom. Today, less than 6 percent of Argentine capital has
been supplied by foreigners. And this change in the pattern of capital flows has not been confined to
Argentina.
As Nobel laureate Robert Lucas has pointed out, this feature of international capital flows is a
paradox: Why doesn't capital flow from rich to poor countries? We know that labor is cheap in poor
countries, and so we might think that capital would be especially productive there. Just think of how
hugely profitable a factory might be in a country where wages are one-tenth of those in the United
States. Capital should, therefore, have extremely high returns in such countries, and we should expect
massive flows of capital from rich countries (where the returns on capital should be relatively low) to
poor countries (where they should be far higher). In fact, there has been a big increase in the amount
of capital moving to emerging-market economies in recent years, but capital primarily still flows from
one rich country to another, where the returns on capital are similar.
Thus, financial globalization is far from complete, and that fact raises a set of questions. Should
financial systems in developing countries become more integrated with the rest of the world? If so,
what should be done to accomplish that integration?
Let me pause here to address an underlying issue that obscures much of the debate about financial
globalization. The important role of the financial system in the economy is not well understood by the
average person, and even many economists are shocked by the high salaries paid to investment
bankers and other financial professionals. "After all," many wonder, "what do these financial
professionals produce? Nothing concrete comes from their highly paid work."
This view, although common, betrays a fatal misunderstanding. Getting the financial system to work
well is critical to the success of an economy. To understand why, think of the financial system as the
brain of the economy: That is, it acts as a coordinating mechanism that allocates capital, the lifeblood
of economic activity, to its most productive uses by businesses and households. If capital goes to the
wrong uses or does not flow at all, the economy will operate inefficiently, and ultimately economic
growth will be low. No work ethic can compensate for a misallocation of capital and the resulting failure
to invest in the most profitable ventures. Hard work will not be productive unless it is accompanied by
the right amount and kinds of capital. Indeed, workers in poor countries often work longer hours than
their counterparts in rich countries, and yet they remain poor. When they emigrate to countries with a
developed financial system and the resulting superior endowment of capital, they often become rich.
Financial globalization - opening a country's financial markets to foreign capital and financial
institutions - will confer several important benefits on developing countries. First, by bringing in new
capital, financial globalization will lower the cost of capital, thereby encouraging investment, which in
turn promotes growth. Second, when foreign capital and financial institutions are allowed to enter a
country, they improve the allocation of capital. Third - the most important benefit and one not usually
emphasized - globalization of a country's financial system, if it is designed to promote competition in
domestic financial markets, helps promote the development of better property rights and institutions.
Better property rights and institutions make the domestic financial sector work better. They facilitate
the movement of capital to productive uses and prepare the domestic financial sector to better handle
the increased capital flows that would come with the opening of the country's financial sector.
The benefits of globalization of trade in goods and services are not controversial among economists.
Polls of economists indicate that one of few things on which they agree is that the globalization of
international trade, in which markets are opened to flows of foreign goods and services, is desirable.
financial
But globalization, the opening up to flows of foreign capital, is highly controversial, even
among economists, despite benefits of the sort I just mentioned.
Globalization and its
For example, in his best-selling book Discontents, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz
is very critical of globalization because he sees the opening up of financial markets in
emergingmarket economies to foreign capital as leading to economic collapse. Even Jagdish Bhagwati, one of
the leading economists defending globalization of trade (after all, his book is titled In Defense of
financial
Globalization), is highly skeptical of globalization, stating that "the claims of enormous
benefits from free capital mobility are not persuasive."1 George Soros, the prominent financier, opens
On Globalization
his book with a chapter entitled "The Deficiencies of Global Capitalism."
One reason for the controversy is that opening up the financial system to foreign capital flows has led
to some disastrous financial crises causing great pain, suffering, and even violence. These crises can
arise when bad policies encourage excessive risk taking by financial institutions, policies that rich
elites in the developing countries often advance for their own profit. There are those (including Stiglitz
and Bhagwati) who put the primary blame for the failures of financial globalization in emerging-market
economies on outsiders, specifically on the International Monetary Fund, or what they refer to as the
Wall Street-Treasury complex. The evidence has brought me to the conclusion that institutions like the
IMF or the U.S. Treasury are not primarily to blame, although neither are they blameless - public and
private financial institutions active in the international capital markets have often aided and abetted
poorly designed financial globalization, although that was not their intention.
Another objection to focusing on financial development and globalization as key factors in economic
growth is that it is far from clear that emerging-market economies are finance constrained: In other
words, they often do not have trouble getting money for investments. But throwing money at
investments does not work. Indeed, as the experience of recent years indicates, too much money
flowing into these countries often resulted in bad loans and investments, which led to financial crises.
The argument for the importance of developing a good financial infrastructure in these countries is not
so much that it increases investment but that it promotes the allocation of investment to the uses that
will do the most good for the economy.
That result - improving the allocation of investments - is something that foreign aid has generally not
been able to accomplish. Although many people lament the paltry amount of aid that rich countries
provide to poor countries, and although aid tightly focused on technical assistance or the financing of
local projects has often had important successes, large aid projects have generally not worked well in
promoting development because typically they have not provided the right incentives. In his book The
Elusive Quest for
Growth, William Easterly cites the extraordinary example of Zambia: If the $2 billion
of aid Zambia received from the advanced countries and international aid organizations since its
independence had gone into productive investments, Zambia would now have an income of more than
$20,000 per capita, putting it in the club of rich nations. Instead, Zambia has a per capita income of
$600, one-third lower than its per capita income at independence.
I noted that globalization designed to promote competition in domestic financial markets helps promote
the development of better property rights and institutions. How do better property rights and institutions
improve investment outcomes? Well, consider the opposite: If you live in a country where it is easy for
others to take your property away, either by force or through government corruption, you would be
crazy to invest there. Without these investments, workers in your country will be unable earn high
wages because they won't have sufficient capital - buildings, machines, and other infrastructure - to
make them highly productive. Poverty will be severe. Hence, the most basic set of growth-promoting
institutions are those that promote property rights - a strong judiciary enforcing the rule of law and a
government free of corruption. Beyond these basic arrangements are others that specifically promote
an efficient financial system through regulation and oversight of financial institutions. With the
protection of property rights, honest government, and financial oversight and enforcement, would-be
investors with the best projects will be the ones who actually get external funds to invest - and this is
the crucial role of the financial system.
We have seen that the repression of the financial system is a great obstacle to economic growth and
the reduction of poverty in poorer countries. Yet, if financial development offers such tremendous
benefits, why doesn't every country jump on the path to growth and prosperity by imitating the
institutions of the advanced economies? Part of the answer is that good institutions need to be
homegrown; institutional frameworks that have been developed in the rich countries frequently do not
translate well to poorer countries. This is a lesson that many in the advanced economies of the world
have yet to learn. The development of good institutions in the advanced countries took hundreds of
years; as they grew, they adapted to local conditions. Poor countries must develop their own
institutions, and the citizens of these nations must feel they have ownership of the institutions or the
institutions will be ineffective and short lived.
If it was difficult and time consuming for the advanced economies to develop a good financial
infrastructure, it will be even harder in many developing countries because to do so they must
overcome what is often a far more dysfunctional political environment. The benefits that accrue from
financial development are dispersed over a wide range of people - to those who could then buy
houses with the help of a mortgage, obtain an automobile loan to buy a car, get capital to start a new
business, and finance new investments in existing businesses. These potential beneficiaries have little
power to demand these benefits. In contrast, the costs would be focused on rich elites and special
interests, who often have a lot of political clout and have much to lose from institutional development
that encourages an efficient financial system and promotes competition.
For an example of dysfunctional institutions that obstruct economic growth while benefiting certain
narrow interests, consider the importance of collateralized loans. The use of collateral is a crucial tool
that helps the financial system make loans because it reduces losses when loans go sour. A person
who would pledge land or capital for a loan must, however, legally own the collateral. Unfortunately, as
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in
Hernando De Soto has documented in his book
the West and Fails Everywhere Else, legalizing the ownership of capital is extremely expensive and
time consuming for the poor in developing countries. To give just one of De Soto's many astonishing
examples, obtaining legal title to a dwelling on urban land in the Philippines can require taking 168
bureaucratic steps through 53 public and private agencies over a period of 13 to 25 years.
The high cost of setting up a legal business or legally purchasing land is another barrier to establishing
clear property rights in many developing countries. Businesses that are not legally established cannot
get legally enforceable loans. Setting up a simple business in the United States generally requires only
filling out a form and paying a nominal licensing fee. In contrast, De Soto's researchers found that
legally registering a small garment workshop in Peru required 289 days, at 6 hours per day; the cost
was about $1,200, which was about 30 times the monthly minimum wage. The lack of property rights
for all but the very rich, as documented by De Soto, is a serious impediment to financial development.
Government is often the primary source of financial repression in developing countries. Strong
property rights, a crucial element in financial development, severely constrain a government's ability to
expropriate land, factories, or ideas whenever it wants to profit from them. Rapacious governments
whose rulers treat their countries as personal fiefdoms are not uncommon: We have seen these
governments in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, and Ferdinand Marcos's
Philippines. Even officials in less tyrannical governments have been known to use the power of the
state to get rich. Not surprisingly, then, many governments pay lip service to property rights but do not
encourage a rule of law to protect them.
So how can emerging-market economies harness their financial systems to make financial
globalization work for them and help them get rich? The short answer is, Develop good institutions that
allocate capital efficiently. The next question is, How?
We know something that developing countries have done and can do to successfully promote
development: Pursue an external orientation and create a successful export sector. That strategy not
only forces the economy to become more efficient but also creates a demand to improve institutions
that encourage financial development. It can do so by weakening the profits and power of the rich
elites and special interests who oppose institutional development, and it can even encourage them to
support institutional reforms to restore their profits. Globalization can therefore help generate the
political will for institutional reform. We have seen this happen in emerging-market economies that
have experienced rapid growth, such as China, India, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Chile.
What can the rich countries do? Besides providing technical assistance and incentives for institutional
development, advanced countries can help by opening up their own markets to exports from poorer
countries - much needs to be done in that regard, particularly in agricultural products. Opening up
richcountry markets to goods and services from developing countries is far more important than financial
aid in alleviating world poverty, and such openness also promotes financial development and stability
in poorer countries. Those who are against opening up markets in the advanced economies are in
effect against reducing poverty abroad and even at home, although they often don't realize it. True,
some
closing off markets in rich countries may help workers in the short run (although in the long run it
will make the average worker worse off because it will lower productivity growth), but this help comes
at the expense of the far-poorer worker in the developing world. Those in advanced economies who
lose their jobs from this opening of markets certainly deserve our sympathy and our support, but that
support should come in ways other than trade restrictions.
I will conclude by saying that those who oppose any and all globalization have it completely backward:
Protectionism, not globalization, is the enemy. It is true that, by itself, globalization in both finance and
trade is not enough to ensure economic development and that economies must position themselves to
handle foreign capital flows. But as I said, to be against globalization as such is most assuredly to be
against poor people, and this is presumably not the position antiglobalizers want to take. Developing
countries cannot get rich unless they globalize in both trade and finance. Making financial flows truly
worldwide and creating robust, efficient financial markets in developing countries is not optional: It
needs to be the focus of the next great globalization. In sum, I want to challenge those who oppose
globalization to rethink their objections. As Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations,
has put it, "The main losers in today's very unequal world are not those who are too much exposed to
globalization. They are those who have been left out."2 Rather than opposing or limiting globalization,
we in the rich countries and those in the developing countries must, as a moral imperative, work
together to make globalization work for the general good of people all over the world.