Event Summary
The Institute hosted a luncheon meeting October 5, 2006 to release its new book Accelerating the Globalization of America: The Role for Information Technology by Catherine L. Mann with Jacob Funk Kirkegaard. The study analyzes how globalization of the information technology (IT) sector, particularly now via its software and services components, enhances the diffusion of IT throughout the US economy, leading to strong contributions to US productivity and output growth. It addresses the outsourcing/offshoring issue in this broader context and the implications of technology-induced accelerated globalization for US policy, with respect to both technology and innovation itself as well as for workers at all skill levels and sectors. Professor Dale Jorgenson of Harvard writes that, “The concluding section is a model of the balanced and astute judgments on international policy issues for which the Institute for International Economics is justly famous.”
Dr. Catherine L. Mann has been a senior fellow at the Institute since 1997 after serving as Assistant Director of the International Finance Division at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and Senior International Staff Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. Her Institute books include Global Electronic Commerce: A Policy Primer and Is the U.S. Trade Deficit Sustainable? She recently became a professor at the International Business School at Brandeis University but will continue to conduct research projects at the Institute. Jacob Funk Kirkegaard has been a research associate at the Institute since 2002 and is coauthor with Martin Baily of Transforming the European Economy.