Os europeus em geral não se podem queixar da globalização. Os portugueses em particular podem-se queixar deles próprios.

A new book * by a pair of academics from America's Johns Hopkins University finds lots of facts to cheer Europeans up. European consumers (ie, all Europeans when they are shopping) are big winners from globalisation, which has delivered cheap imports, held down inflation and kept interest rates low. Despite the fuss about China and India, the EU's share of world exports rose slightly between 2000 and 2006. What is more, two-thirds of Chinese exports involve foreign brands, a good chunk of which are European. Nor does a “made in China” tag mean big revenues for Chinese firms. In a recent speech defending globalisation, the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, cited a University of California study into who gains when an iPod is sold in America for $299. Only $4 stays in China with the firms that assemble the devices, Mr Mandelson explained. $160 goes to American companies that design, transport and retail iPods. A similar pattern holds for many European products.

Europeans worry a lot about wage competition. The researchers note that globalisation is not just about wages, but more broadly about finding efficiencies anywhere along complex supply chains. After all, most non-EU employees of European firms live in America, not China (EU and Swiss firms employ some 3.5m workers in America). Yes, European jobs have been lost by offshoring, but unevenly. In France only 3.4% of jobs lost in 2005 could be blamed on offshoring, though there has been a wave of factory closures more recently (see article). Portugal has suffered more: a quarter of its job losses between 2003 and 2006 involved jobs heading overseas, mostly to new EU members.

* “Globalisation and Europe: Prospering in the New Whirled Order”. By Daniel S. Hamilton and Joseph P. Quinlan, Centre for Transatlantic Relations.

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