Taiwanese Company

Capital flows have a similar effect to the migration of labor: when capital flows into a country, it increases the real wage; when capital flows out of a country, real wages decrease. Globalization benefits the world as a whole, but many individual workers may lose out. United Arab Emirates The policies of Dubai are straightforward to understand in the framework of this chapter. Dubai is actively trying to import foreign physical capital and human capital. It is encouraging multinational firms to establish operations in the country. This makes sense because, as we now know, increased physical and human capital will both tend to increase the marginal product of labor in Dubai, leading to higher wages and higher prosperity. Dubai’s claims of attractiveness rest largely on its social infrastructure. The United Kingdom Migrant workers are a global phenomenon, be they Poles traveling to England, Mexicans moving to the United States, or Filipinos moving to Saudi Arabia. Like the young Poles in this story, they move from country to country in search of higher wages. Worker migration across national boundaries tends to equalize wages in different countries. As workers leave Poland, for example, labor becomes scarcer there, so wages in Poland tend to increase. When they arrive in the United Kingdom, there is more labor supplied to the United Kingdom labor market, so wages there tend to decrease. However, labor migration is still quite limited because (1) countries restrict immigration and (2) most workers still do not want to suffer the upheaval of moving to a different country and culture. United States The competitiveness initiatives of President Obama and President George W. Bush are designed to increase both human capital and knowledge within the United States. They include measures to strengthen education (human capital), increase research and development (R&D; knowledge), and encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. We have seen that the idea of competitiveness is subtle: nations do not compete in the same way that countries do. Still, improvements in technology and human capital will tend to increase the marginal product of capital, making the United States a more attractive place for investment. In that sense, they do make the country more competitive.