This grant supports work at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on important gaps in the policy discussions about the effects of globalization on the U.S. economy. In the first of two projects, EPI will pull together what is known about the nature and extent of U.S. corporations' R&D efforts at home and abroad, and will assess the links between the location of R&D and the national benefits obtained from these investments. The research will review policies adopted by states, regions, and other countries that are specifically intended to capture the downstream benefits from R&D, and identify policies that could help the U.S. improve both the public and private benefits from R&D performed here. In the second project, EPI will analyze the "costs" of globalization and its distributional effects. Starting with a comprehensive review of the literature addressing the impact of trade flows on income distribution, EPI researchers will identify the various methodological approaches authors have taken and will translate, wherever possible, each study's findings into comparable metrics. Since much of this literature is a decade or more old, the analysis will attempt to extend the various authors' estimates to the present. Several alternative scenarios of future trade flows will be outlined and an attempt made to translate results into metrics that non-economists can easily understand. Project Director: Robert E. Scott, Director of International Programs.

Relatively little is known about what happens in currently or formerly manufacturing-dependent locations in the U.S. that have lost manufacturing jobs. Have other jobs filled the vacuum and if so, what industries have they been in and how do wages in industries where jobs have been gained compare to wages in lost manufacturing jobs? What steps have government, business, and others taken to change the industry, product, technological, and skill mix of the affected region's economy, and how effective have such steps been? This grant will combine case studies with comparative and longitudinal quantitative analysis by industry studies researchers to address such questions. They will first examine the kinds of non-manufacturing industries that replaced lost manufacturing jobs in manufacturing-dependent regions of the U.S. between 1990 and 2005. Two metropolitan areas heavily impacted by loss of manufacturing jobs will be selected for pilot case studies. One will have seen robust overall job growth despite the loss of manufacturing jobs; the other will not have fared well. Researchers will conduct interviews with public officials, business leaders, and others in both areas. Also, they will study the policies and strategies used in the two areas and their results, all to explore why the regions performed as well or poorly as they did. Based on these pilot studies, six additional metropolitan areas will be selected for in-depth case studies. The aim is to identify some practical policy and strategy recommendations for state and local business and government leaders that could promote growth of high-wage jobs in high-productivity, geographically rooted service industries. Project Director: Harold L. Wolman, Professor of Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration, and International Affairs; Director, Institute of Public Policy.

This grant establishes an interdisciplinary program across the law and business schools at Vanderbilt to study global corporations and to provide a clear, well-developed framework for understanding corporate and international law that can illuminate the special problems that arise when corporations operate transnationally, i.e., in settings where there is no clearly applicable international law or where it is uncertain which, if any, national law applies. Researchers will pursue a series of projects over the next few years that analyze transnational corporations as providers and improvisers of governance arrangements. One set of projects will explore how the boundaries of corporations are determined (i.e., what functions are kept in-house and what are outsourced) and the implications of these decisions for determining which relations are to be governed by the internal hierarchy of the firm rather than by external law. Another group of projects will explore how relations within firms are governed in a global environment. One project will begin the work of identifying and assessing factors that may serve to constrain the behavior of corporations that operate in a global environment. Project Director: Professor Margaret Blair, Law School.

To develop further the concept of fair exchange through research and analysis of state and local government investments in for-profit business organizations. Project Director: John Logue, Professor of Political Science; Director, Ohio Employee Ownership Center.

To hold a series of workshops that will explore new models of corporate governance in finance and economics. Project Director: Stewart C. Myers, Professor of Finance, Sloan School of Management.

To support the efforts of business school students working to get team production and alternative theories of corporate governance included in their curricula. Project Director: Elizabeth Maw, Executive Director.