Assaf Razin – författare

A rigorous analysis of the role played by globalization in key episodes in the development of the Israeli economy, from hyperinflation crisis to high-tech surge.

Anti-globalization sentiments are rising, especially in Europe and the United States, with the increasingly integrated global economy blamed for domestic economic distress. In this book, Assaf Razin argues that Israel offers a counterexample to this view, showing decisively positive economic effects of globalized finance, trade, and immigration. He offers a rigorous analysis of the role played by globalization in key episodes in the remarkable development of the Israeli economy. His findings may hold lessons for productivity-challenged advanced economies as well as for other countries such as China currently making the transition to fully developed economies.

Razin examines the wave of immigration after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as highly skilled Soviet Jews migrated to Israel and the effect on income inequality; the Great Moderation of inflation and employment in advanced economies, as Israel''s inflation converged in parallel with low world inflation rates; Israel''s robustness in the face of the deflation shocks of the 2008 financial crisis; and technology transmission through foreign direct investment, reinforcing Israel''s high-tech sector surge. He also considers such ongoing challenges as high fertility and low labor market participation and the economic costs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The 1990s saw global flows of foreign direct investment increase some sevenfold, spurring economists to explore FDI from a micro- or trade-based perspective. Foreign Direct Investment is one of the first books to analyze the macroeconomics of FDI, treating FDI as a unique form of international capital flow between specific pairs of countries. By examining the determinants of the aggregate flows of FDI at the bilateral, source-host-country level, Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka present the first systematic global analysis of the singular features of FDI flows. Drawing on a wealth of fresh data, they provide new theoretical models and empirical techniques that illuminate the vital country-pair characteristics that drive these flows. Uniquely, Foreign Direct Investment examines FDI between developed and developing countries, and not just between developed countries. Among many other insights, the book shows that tax competition vis-à-vis FDI need not lead to a "race to the bottom." Foreign Direct Investment is an essential resource for graduate students, academics, and policy professionals.

This book is about three key dimensions in economics—globalization, migration and the welfare state—that are of enduring interest. These issues are particularly important to consider at the present moment given the strains posed by the pandemic: there is at least a temporary setback to trade-globalization and migration, and the cost of fighting the pandemic will strain the ability of governments to provide welfare state services in a style and scope to which many of their citizens have become accustomed. The book explains the changing function of the welfare state in the presence of intensified globalization, or de-globalization, forces. The welfare state’s policy-maker attitudes toward openness and migration depend on open-economy fundamentals, and the income class it represents. The author demonstrates the interactions between migration, globalization and macroeconomic policy in practice, using real-world unique episodes, with Israel deemed as well-functioning trifecta, and the US and Europe as imperfectly functioning trifecta.