globalization

Of globalization’s promises and perils

As a student in 2003, I had an opportunity to interview a social activist about food security in India. Among other things, she blamed globalization for the slow demise of the local food industry. She went a step further and labeled globalization as depriving people (small scale farmers and workers) of their livelihoods. Her solution for India to become a leader in the food industry was by staying local, small, and forming cooperatives rather than fostering large agribusiness. This was quite a contrasting view at a time when India was starting to see benefits from its economic liberalization. In retrospect, I was interviewing someone who was ahead of a trend where activists were increasingly wary about the downsides of globalization and its impact on development.

Since then, globalization has sped up and contentious debates over who ultimately benefits have grown. And just as finance ministers from various countries were converging on Washington to discuss vital issues like extreme poverty, global macroeconomic prospects, jobs creation, and inclusive growth, revisiting globalization seemed germane to tackling development challenges.

It is generally thought that two groups are the big winners of the past two decades of globalization: the very rich, and the middle classes of emerging market economies.

The statistical evidence for this has been cobbled together from a number of disparate sources. The evidence includes high GDP growth in emerging market economies, strong income gains recorded for those at the top of the income pyramid in the United States and other advanced economies, as well as what seems to be the emergence of “a global middle class” and casual observations of the rising affluence of Chinese and Indians.

Starting in the early 1990s many emerging economies have embraced financial sector reforms and liberalization. As a consequence, they have become more financial globalized, triggering an important debate about the pros and cons of this process and its relation to financial crises. Notwithstanding all the attention, there are different dimensions of globalization, which are many times not clearly defined and which might add noise to the discussion.

In a recent World Bank policy research working paper and VoxEU column, we argue that there are at least two interconnected, albeit essentially distinct facets of financial globalization. The first one is financial diversification, that is, the cross-country holdings of foreign assets and liabilities. The second one is financial offshoring, that is, the use of foreign jurisdictions to conduct financial transactions. While the former focuses on who holds the assets, the latter deals with where the assets are transacted.

The 2012 World Development Report, Gender Equality and Development, argues that gender equality “contributes to economic efficiency and the achievement of other key development outcomes.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated at the APEC Women and the Economy Summit that “the increase in employment of women in developed countries during the past decade has added more to global growth than China has, ” and argued that incorporating women into the formal workforce is critical for economic progress. Understanding how major policy changes affect women’s employment and the gender wage gap is therefore critical for implementing future policies that may affect women’s status and opportunities.

ABCDE 2011, Paris. Photo: OECD
Development is about big systemic changes, complex tradeoffs, political choices and how the fruits of growth are channeled for the greater good. It is also about broadening opportunities – a goal that if neglected can result in frustrated citizens and tumult as we have seen in the North Africa and Middle East.

These were some of the many messages I took away from the ABCDE conference just held in Paris.

Old square surrounding Zamkowy Statue in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: Istockphoto.com Through its forthcoming European Union presidency Poland should inspire other regions of the world that seek their own development path. By no means do current turbulences and crisis disturbances shatter the need of European integration. Just the opposite, they make it stronger. European integration works and will get through this confusion.

Photo: Istcokphoto.com

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, many observers thought that the G-20 had a chance to succeed in the development arena where the G-8 foundered. Expectations were high that the G-20’s wider legitimacy and fresh remit would result in breakthrough solutions to knotty problems, from health pandemics to global warming. Yet the reality was that the G-20 Working Group on Development was pragmatic and selected a somewhat narrower range of priorities to focus on and many of the issues were ones that grew out of regional or national priorities. That is how the real world works—by consensus and stakeholder collaboration.

At the book launch for Postcrisis Growth and Development: A Development Agenda for the G-20, Moisés Naím and Arvind Subramanian, both astute observers of trends in globalization, expressed disappointment that the G-20 development agenda didn't devote more energy to big ‘global public goods’ issues. Moreover, they noted a failure to grapple with the biggest risks facing the development community, such as illicit financial flows or climate change.

Photo: istockphoto.com

There is a shared sense that globalization has a strong potential to contribute to growth and poverty alleviation. There are several examples of countries in which integration into the world economy was followed by strong growth and a reduction of poverty, but evidence also indicates that trade opening does not automatically engender growth. The question therefore arises, why the effects of globalization have been so different among countries of the world.

A look at changes in the structure of employment in Latin America and in Asia hints at possible explanations for observed differences in the growth effects of trade. Since the 1980s, Asia and Latin America have both rapidly integrated into the world economy. Asia has enjoyed rapid employment and productivity growth, but the consequences for Latin America have been less stellar.

The chart below shows how the pattern of structural change has differed in the two continents. The chart decomposes labor productivity growth in the two regions into three components: (i) a “within” component that is the weighted average of labor productivity growth in each sector of the economy; (ii) a “between” component that captures economy-wide gains (or losses) from the reallocation of labor between sectors with differing levels of labor productivity; and (iii) a “cross” component that measures the gains (or losses) from the reallocation of labor to sectors with above-average (below-average) productivity growth. The underlying data for the charts come from the Groningen Growth and Development Centre.

Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley presented at the World Bank last week on his new book, ‘Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: A China-India Comparative Economic Assessment.’

Examining the Indian and Chinese economies, Bardhan set about debunking commonly held views on the economic drivers in the two countries and also their relationship with the rest of the World. He offered unconventional insights, but also a cautionary note on future prospects.

globalization

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Financial Globalization in Emerging Countries: Diversification vs. Offshoring

Globalization and the Gender Earnings Gap in the Apparel Industry

Development economics thinks big but also gets practical—postcard from Paris

The Warsaw Initiative

Growth and Development Nuts and Bolts for the G-20

Trade, Employment, and Structural Transformation

Understanding India and China's success: not as straightforward as it seems

globalization

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