The debate on the impact of globalization tends to stress different and sometimes opposite aspects. Some argue that globalization is likely to have a positive impact on economic growth and efficiency, whereas others seem worried of its negative impact on workers, of the generation of new forms of social exclusion and of a worsening of market failure. The essays presented in this volume offer critical elements for assessing these positions. They also examine the role of national and international institutions in ensuring that globalization leads to a more sustained and equitable economic growth without endangering social cohesion.

The Department of Public Economics of the Rome University "La Sapienza," in keeping with its primary task of promoting research, not only inside the Department, but also through an exchange of ideas with scholars from Italian and foreign research institutions, periodically organizes conferences and meetings on the important topics of economic theory and policy. Economic globalization clearly belongs to this category. Just consider the widespread effects and consequences of globalization, the range of tools that its analysis requires as well as its impact on the welfare of the populations involved, and the new difficulties it brings about in terms of methods and results of public and regulatory interventions. Therefore, on this very subject, the Department of Public Economics invited a group of scholars, who have been deeply involved with the questions raised by economic globalization, to a direct confrontation. The aim of this conference was to deepen awareness of the phenomenon and its specific impact on the advanced economies of our continent, as well as to formulate proposals for action on both the national and super-national level. This volume, which collects the contributions presented at this meeting, gives an account of the deliberations that took place at the Conference "Globalization, Institutions and Social Cohesion" held at the Faculty of Economics of Rome University "La Sapienza" from the 15th to the 17th of December 1998.