In recognition of the urgent need for greater international cooperation on environmental and health issues, a consortium of organizations in the State of Michigan has organized a program designed to promote the development of a new level of cooperation between Michigan and China.
The program will introduce representatives of national and provincial governments, environmentally concerned businesses and universities from China to the broad range of "green" business, research and government sponsored programs which have potential for helping China manage its environmental challenges.

The State of Michigan, under the leadership of Governor Jennifer Granholm, has launched a broad policy initiative to help Michigan industry and universities become global leaders in providing answers to the challenges of climate change. Michigan's century old world class manufacturing expertise is being redesigned to promote the "green economy." Developing mutually beneficial economic relationships with China is a key component of achieving this goal.

The Research Institute for Industrial Economics (IFN), The Leverhulme Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy and CIBER at Michigan State University has arranged a workshop on globalization and labor markets. Trade models with heterogeneous firms have been a major focus of research for the past decade. More recently, some trade theorists have begun to enrich these models by incorporating heterogeneity in the labor market as well. Such research holds the potential to uncover connections between the nexus of worker and firm decisions with characteristics of the global environment. The idea of the workshop was to bring together a small group of theorists who are working on such models with empiricists who are familiar with matched worker-firm data sources.