April 2, 2002
Alvin Lyte, a three-time All-Patriot League sprinter, is among a dozen Lafayette students who will join former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, award-winning author and journalist Naomi Klein, and several professors in presenting at a Lafayette conference on globalization April 16-17.
Lyte, an economics and business major and English minor from Queens, will present findings from the research he is conducting with Sam McDonald '02 and Crystal Taylor '02. The joint study is titled "International Public Finance and Political Economy," and the goal is to analyze the potential impact of globalization on the role of government and public expenditure and finance decisions across a range of countries.
"We'll go into demographics and explore trends like the euro currency and recent events in this race for globalization," explains Lyte, who earned All-Patriot League honors at each of the last three conference meets. "Since the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, there's been more openness and free trade and we see that a lot of economies are interlinked. Each country exploits its comparative advantages. But by being more open, the United States is exposing itself to other, dangerous consequences." Their study will illustrate both the positive and negative consequences of globalization, he says.
"Basically, we're looking at three broad areas in depth," says Lyte. These include government subsidies to the farm industry, labor laws, and restructuring of economic links between countries, tariffs, and international economic organizations and institutions.
Lyte notes that he chose this area of study because he has always been interested in socioeconomic factors and the interplay between government and society.
"Public finance is the way in which government allocates scarce resources and through this allocation regulates society," says Lyte. A prominent example is government subsidies to the farm and domestic steel industries.
"Globalization will hit some segments of the United States population harder than others," says Lyte. "The steel industries and farm industries will be hit hard because they won't have the government to help them. It's cheaper to operate in underdeveloped countries. Unskilled labor, low-intensive labor, and remedial jobs will be hurt more than others."
Lyte's academic adviser for the study is Gladstone Hutchinson, acting dean of studies and associate professor of economics and business. Hutchinson says that although this is a joint project, each student has a distinct part to research. The students convene for about three hours each week to talk about their findings. Hutchinson has given them the basic framework and makes suggestions during their discussions.
"I think Dean Hutchinson is very knowledgeable," says Lyte. "He presents the background information and then allows you to come to your own conclusions, always making sure that you understand the complexities of the issue at hand."
The synergy among the three students is important and their presentation at the conference should prove useful and informative to participants, says Hutchinson.
The globalization events include guest lectures, brown bag roundtable discussions, and mini-conferences involving students from participating economics and government classes. David Veshosky, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is coordinating the event.
A graduate of Christ King Regional High School, Lyte is a member of the Association of Black Collegians. He has been involved in programs with Lafayette's Landis Community Outreach Center, participating in campus cleanups and volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club.
This past summer, Lyte completed an internship at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Basically, I worked in U Penn's Business Department doing two different jobs," says Lyte.
"For the first month, I worked in a monetary incentive program that was set up to encourage families to move into West Philadelphia, an area that's notorious for being run down." He helped families secure bank loans.
The second part of the internship had him in a customer service position and working on a newsletter for incoming freshmen, handling technical computer problems.
