The dynamics of financial globalization: Technology,market structure,and policy response

The development of increasingly transnationalized (globalized) financial markets raises several key issues for the analysis of politics, public policy, and the national state. This article suggests that financial globalization increasingly constrains policymakers and circumscribes the policy capacity of the state. After looking briefly at a range of approaches to the process of financial globalization itself, the author suggests that technological change is the main independent variable, by reducing transaction costs and dramatically increasing the price sensitivity of financial markets across borders, while at the same time making possible a range of economies of scale. These very developments have a knock-on effect throughout the domestic and international economies. They in turn make obsolescent the political economies of scale — the governance structures — which have characterized economic policy in modern nation-states, undermining the capacity of the state to produce public goods. At the same time, globalized financial markets interact with rapidly changing interest group structures and divided state structures, especially through regulatory arbitrage. Without the development of transnational regimes capable of regulating global financial markets, the structural basis of the national state itself is being undermined, and Polanyi's Great Transformation is over.     

The regulation and deregulation of televison: a British/West European comparison

This article compares and contrasts the systems of regulation and deregulation in the British and West European television industries. Although all television systems were affected by the information revolution and neo-liberal political economy in the 1980s,in many respects the British experience was Unique. The evolution of a mixed public/private system over forty years and the unique position of the BBC as a source of skilled labour and as a cultural benchmark for the entire industry,placed it in a stronger position than other public service systems to meet the new challanges to its hegemony. The British television industry demonstrates the tenacity of well-estabilished social structures and policy-making behaviour. This will be shown by reviewing the history of the recent Broadcasting Act. The European dimension of broadcasting policy and regulation is discussed in terms of the EC Directives and support for high defination television. This shows that the aim of protecting European industry and culture is not dissimilar from the ambitions of national regulation at an earlier stage.     

The liberalisation of capital movements and financial services in the European single market: A case study in regulation

Abstract. The creation of a common market in capital is a basic component of the European Community's single market programme. This article provides an explanation of the factors which have shaped the single market for capital in terms of three 'perspectives' which supplement each other and which collectively provide a substantive explanation. These perspectives include: (i) the policy requirements and politico-economic context of the single market programme; (ii) the complex and multi-faceted nature of regulation in the financial services field; and (iii) the political balance of power between the national, EC and international agencies involved in financial regulation. Each of these three perspectives contributes salient insights unavailable to the other two. Collectively they provide an explanation of how the liberalisation of capital movements and financial services has actually involved creating a more sophisticated regulatory order rather than simply reducing the volume of regulation.     

The limits of deregulation: Transnational interpenetration and policy change

Abstract. Deregulation became a major cross-national trend in the 1980s. Proponents of deregulation have included neoclassicists, pragmatists and certain analysts on the Left and Center-Left. Deregulation has a number of unintended or unforeseen consequences. A major issue is the development of new, market-oriented regulations and regulatory structures – the first category of 'reregulation'. Another is the cross-national knock-on effect of regulatory changes. And a third is the emergence of new forms of market stabilization and control, whether by the state or at the transnational level. A crucial feature of deregulation is the change in the wider pattern of state intervention from the 'welfare state' model to that of the 'competition state'. A number of competing explanations for deregulation can be identified – market explanations, institutional/technological explanations and political explanations – each of which has significant variants. These explanations can be seen to apply in the real world at four different levels: the 'global' level; that of various intermediary transnational political structures; the state level; and the level of 'self-regulation' of a neo-corporatist kind.     

The assurance problem in a laboratory market

The financial support of the National Science Foundation (SES 8606770 and 8608112) and of the Alfred P. Sloan foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The data from the experiments reported here are on PLATO permanent storage and are available from the authors upon requests. These experiments were conducted using the facilities of the Economic Science Laboratory at the University of Arizona. The assistance of Joe Campbell and Sheryl Ball in conducting these experiments is greatly appreciated. We thank David Conn, David Porter, Kevin McCabe, Tom Palfrey, S.Y. Tang, and Gordon Tullock for their comments on this and earlier drafts, with the responsibility for remaining errors being strictly our own.     

Shareholder wealth effects of legislative events: The case of airline deregulation

This paper presents empirical evidence about the impact on shareholder wealth of legislative events leading to the enactment of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. In contrast to prior regulatory event studies, this paper examines not only the final legislative enactment but also the Congressional hearings that preceded it. No significant effect on shareholder wealth is indicated when averaged across all airline firms and all legislative events. Impact of deregulation, however, was expected to be different for trunk airlines than for local airlines. Moreover, market expectations likely changed with the change in the political climate during the course of deregulation deliberations, from an industry financial health emphasis under a Republican (Ford) administration to a consumer welfare emphasis under a Democratic (Carter) administration. We find that trunk airlines experienced significant positive abnormal returns during the Ford administration, but negative abnormal returns during the Carter administration. In contrast, local airlines exhibited significant negative abnormal returns during both the Ford and Carter eras. Systematic risk of both trunk and local airlines also increased with the change in the political climate.     

The Next Big Thing: Local Celebrity

In this essay I observe that, as the field of celebrity studies established itself in the academy, there is a need for a distinctly sociological and interactional approach to celebrity. In particular, I argue for a focus on the experiential and relational dynamics of celebrity from the point of view of celebrities themselves, something which has so far been difficult for researchers to achieve. One way to accomplish this goal is to move in the direction celebrity itself seems to be headed: toward local or subcultural celebrities and their smaller, more segmented audiences. Empirical research on the lived experiences of local celebrities provides a practical way to generate celebrity-level data and makes an important sociological contribution to broader theorizing about the cultural phenomenon of celebrity.     

The Big Society: Back to the Future

This article contributes to the steady flow of critiques of the big society idea contained in The Political Quarterly. It focuses chiefly on two sets of parallels. The first is between the big society and the policies pursued by the Thatcher government which, despite their obvious rhetorical differences, contain many striking similarities, including their neoliberal origins, application of the ‘crowding out’ thesis and uncritically idealised notions of community. The second is between the big society and a policy with the same name pursued doggedly by the Chinese Communist Party for nearly 20 years until being abandoned as a failure. Lessons for the Prime Minister's flagship policy are drawn from the Chinese experience. The article concludes with a welcome for the rediscovery of the social by public policy and some suggestions as to how a more participative and democratic state could follow from this breakthrough.     

The economic theory of regulation and trucking deregulation: Shifting to the state level

Federal deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980 created a general gain in economic welfare at the expense of the monopoly rents of powerful interests, leading some scholars to ponder the limitations of the economic theory of regulation. However, analyzing only the federal changes excludes evidence from the significant intrastate sector of the trucking industry, regulation of which remains largely unchanged from that prior to 1980. This paper argues that after a decade of clear federal policy success, truckers continue to capture most state regulators, sustaining monopoly rents in what would otherwise be an inherently competitive industry. Using data from the fifty states, we demonstrate the extent to which the economic theory is in fact consistent with trucking industry evidence.