Globalization and Economic Ethics

What is the appropriate criterion to use for distributive justice? Is it efficiency, need, contribution, entitlement, equality, effort, or ability? Globalization and Economic Ethics maintains that far from being rival principles of distributive justice, efficiency and need satisfaction are, in fact, complementary norms in our emerging knowledge economy. After all, human capital plays the central role in effecting and sustaining long-term efficiency in the Digital Age. This book explores the vital link between human capital formation and allocative efficiency using the properties of the market and the knowledge economy as analytical tools. 

Albino Barrera is Professor of Economics and Humanities at Providence College in Rhode Island. His publications include Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics (2005), God and the Evil of Scarcity: Moral Foundations of Economic Agency (2005), and Modern Catholic Social Documents and Political Economy (2001). 

Overlapping Questions: Globalization and Distributive Justice * PART I: THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY * Microelectronics and Market Efficiency * Requisite Agility * PART II: EFFICIENCY AS A CRITERION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE * Efficiency Matters Even More in the Information Age: Considering the Distributive Dimension of Price * PART III: NEED AS A CRITERION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE * Need Satisfaction as a Necessary Condition of Efficiency * Broader Base for Market Initiative, Creativity, and Stability * PART IV: ENTITLEMENT AS A CRITERION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE * Ownership Externalities * Summary and Conclusions: Distributive Justice in the Knowledge Economy