Globalization and the Future of the National Economy

Abstract

Many observers are concerned that the growth of globalization will undermine and destroy national economies. For the past six years, Professor Suzanne Berger, the Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science at MIT, our keynote speaker, has worked with a cross-disciplinary research team at the MIT Industrial Performance Center to study the globalization strategies of 500 major companies in the United States, Asia, and Europe. This study addressed such questions as which functions companies were out-sourcing and which they were keeping in-house in the electronics and textile and apparel industries in order to see how faster and slower industries have been impacted by globalization.