Seminar in Business and Government

Topic Selection
POEC 7321 (001) Fall 2011 Monday 4:00 PM - 6:45 PM Introduction This seminar is designed to introduce students to defining features of both the private and public sectors and the boundaries that help define them as well as to the issues arising from the ways in which markets and states interact and either enable or constrain one anotheroften at the same time. The course content details - particularly with regard to the second task should not be considered final until I know the size/composition and backgrounds/expectations of enrolled participants. After our first meeting I will draft a seminar roadmap tailored to address these factors. Seminar Learning Objectives As a result of focused and energetic participation in this seminar, students should be able to: 1. Identify classic factors in governance (politics) and the economy (economics) that define the domain of political economy. 2. Evaluate critically the domains of government and business and identify the factors that influence the ebb and flow of their respective influences on public policy and institutional strategy. 3. Understand the circumstances that led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the origins of economic growth, wealth creation and income distribution. 4. Identify and conceptually link - the defining features of both macro- and micro-scale economic change dynamics. 5. Discuss the significance of the spatial organization of economic dynamics and the role of clusters in economic growth, development. 6. Apply the concepts associated with economics and politics to the evolution of economies at multiple scales (global, national, regional, firm-level). 7. Conceptualize and apply the notion of innovation in technological, organizational and related notions of change. 8. Begin to anticipate and characterize the defining features of economic eras that are forming in the adjacent future. Reading Assignments and Seminar Administration Because this is a seminar, active participation by all is expected. I anticipate that by approximately the 3rd session, topic discussions will be researched and substantial contributions to each session prepared by all seminar members. We will discuss the criteria for preparation and participation in one of the earliest meetings. The tension between business and government is nothing new. [It]is being exacerbated by the rapid rate of economic, social, and technological change (M. Weidenbaum, 2000:201). Two types of readings will be assigned as background for each topic. 1. Scholarly (peer-reviewed published research), with emphasis on theoretical formulations, conceptual distinctions, methodology/measurement, hypothesis-testing and empirical analysis. 2. Public policy -oriented, with its emphasis on analysis and advocacy, issues and interest groups, seeking to address particular problems and understanding the conceptual and empirical foundations for alternative policy positions. In addition, each student will be required to monitor current events daily for evidence of developments shifts in or challenges to the boundaries between the state and markets in one or more economic (social) policy domains. Details will be announced later. The following course resources have been identified and access enabled for this course: 1. [NAS] National Academy of Sciences, Rising Above the Gathering Storm (2007) Instructor: D. A. Hicks Office: GR3.804 972.883.2733 (Office) dahicks@utdallas.edu

2.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463 [Y&S] Yergin, Daniel & Joseph Stanislaw (2002), Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Free Press. ISBN-13: 978-0-684-83569-3.

Other readings and presentation files will be posted at https://elearning.utdallas.edu/webct/entryPageIns.dowebct Performance Evaluation TBD

Topics and Selected Readings

I. Establishing a Framework
1. Superpowers and Supermarkets: Boundaries and Balance: What are the implications and impacts of the power to tax, spend and mandate? Whither the state? In the post-Cold War Era, the state was thought to be in retreat? Where are we today? How do we know? Have markets gained/lost the upper hand? In this early section we will examine the trends shaping the role and function of the state in the United States as well as those in other advanced industrial economies. As new technologies have expanded economic scale and scope, has the rationale for state involvement in the economy changed?

II. Government regulation of business

2. Regulation: Rationale, Tools and Impacts: New Paradigms and Policies: What are the implications and impacts of the power to regulate? What is the rationale for economic regulation? As advanced industrial economies have developed over the past half-century, has this rationale remained as compelling as before? Has a new rationale complete with new indicators and policy tools begun to emerge? 3. Deregulation: Strategies and Goals: What is the logic of market deregulation? What are the policy issues and institutional implications for government and industry? We will use telecommunications and electrical utilities as examples of a) the implications of unraveling of the conventional economic rationale for a natural monopoly and b) the prospects for government initiative to stimulate competition. Does the rationale for antitrust continue to serve us in an era so heavily influenced by rapid technological innovation? Are new indicators required for monitoring the degree of competition in an economy?

III.

Government Promotion of Economic Productivity and Performance

4. Promoting Economic Competition and Competitiveness: Is the rationale for antitrust activity changing? Is there a role for serial monopoly in a modern economy? Can government implement an effective competition policy? 5. Public Infrastructure Investment Spending: Is public spending/investment the consequence or cause or both - of economic growth? What is the rationale for public investment strategies in growth-supporting infrastructures (e.g., airports, highway/rail systems, telecom systems, etc.)? We will explore these in both regional and national-scale economic contexts.

6. Promoting Technological Innovation: Industry, Science and Technology Policies: What is the rationale for government strategy and funding for stimulating technological innovation? Are there any success stories? Do we need to rethink the rationale for explicit/implicit national science and technology policies? 7. Promoting Enterprise Formation and New Business Entry: The key to dynamic capitalism is enterprise turnover and replacement. How can the state promote this dynamic? What policy tools are available for stimulating business basechurn?

IV.

Government Promotion of National Interests in a Global-Scale Economy

8. Promoting Market Development and Scale Expansion: Here we will examine issues related to trade liberalization and globalization issues, etc. NAFTA, trade/affiliated trade and related issues. 9. Promoting Economic Competitiveness: This topic will be pursued on two separate fronts. First we will take a comparative (cross-national/cross-industry) view of advanced nations attempts to move their economies to technology-intensive industry mixes. We will examine alternative state-societal formulations to achieve international competitiveness, with special attention to the reluctance of most major economies to subscribe to the market society that the United States more generally accepts as accompanying a market economy. Emphasis will be placed on how the issue of competitiveness came to be defined and diagnosed, the kinds of analysis brought to bear, the principal actors/institutions, the range of policy options that have emerged, and any evidence of their relative efficacy. Second, we will examine the issue of the rapid development of NICs (newly industrialized countries) and the alternative conceptualizations of market development and the industry-government policies deployed to implement them. 10. Intellectual Property and Economic Security: Rationale and instruments for protecting intellectual capital and its role in national economic security.

V.

Promoting a Diminished Role or a different role?

11. Privatization and Devolution: What is the logic supporting intergovernmental and inter-sectoral reassignments of public-sector services (e.g., contracting out state welfare and/or prison services to the private sector)? What does early evidence suggest regarding prospects for success?