Journal of Economic Literature
ISSN 0022-0515 (Print) | ISSN 2328-8175 (Online)
A Flat World, a Level Playing Field, a Small World After All, or None of the Above? A Review of Thomas L Friedman's The World is Flat
Journal of Economic Literature
vol. 45,
no. 1, March 2007
(pp. 83–126)
Abstract
Geography, flat or not, creates special relationships between buyers and sellers who reside in the same neighborhoods, but Friedman turns this metaphor inside-out by using The World is Flat to warn us of the perils of a relationship-free world in which every economic transaction is contested globally. In his "flat" world, your wages are set in Shanghai. In fact, most of the footloose relationship-free jobs in apparel and footwear and consumer electronics departed the United States several decades ago, and few U.S. workers today feel the force of Chinese and Indian competition, notwithstanding the alarming anecdotes about the outsourcing of intellectual services. Of course, standardization, mechanization, and computerization all work to increase the number of footloose tasks, but innovation and education work in the opposite direction, creating relationship-based activities—like the writing of this review. It may only be personal conceit, but I imagine there is a reason why the Journal of Economic Literature asked me to do this review.Citation
Leamer, Edward, E. 2007. "A Flat World, a Level Playing Field, a Small World After All, or None of the Above? A Review of Thomas L Friedman's The World is Flat." Journal of Economic Literature, 45 (1): 83–126. DOI: 10.1257/jel.45.1.83JEL Classification
- F02 International Economic Order
- F10 Trade: General
- F23 Multinational Firms; International Business
- L24 Contracting Out; Joint Ventures; Technology Licensing
- R12 Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity