Globalization? No question! Foreign direct investment and labor commanded

Abstract

Skeptics of the globalization thesis argue that most Third World countries are "virtually written off the map" (Hirst and Thompson 1999) in terms of foreign direct investment and trade. The authors reexamine the empirical evidence on international investment, drawing on the concept of labor commanded. Recalculating foreign direct investment flows in terms of labor-commanded hours instead of U.S. dollars, the authors find developing countries to be highly integrated into the global economy. © 2008 Union for Radical Political Economics.