The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an economically diverse region. Despite undertaking economic reforms in many countries, and having considerable success in avoiding crises and achieving macroeconomic stability, the region’s economic performance in the past 30 years has been below potential. This paper takes stock of the region’s relatively weak performance, explores the reasons for this out come, and proposes an agenda for urgent reforms.
Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.
This powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Those seeking to understand why globalization has engendered the hostility of protesters in Seattle and Genoa will find the reasons here. While this book includes no simple formula on how to make globalization work, Stiglitz provides a reform agenda that will provoke debate for years to come. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book. With a new foreword for this paperback edition.
People passionately disagree about the nature of the globalization process. The failure of both the 1999 and 2003 World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial conferences in Seattle and Cancun, respectively, have highlighted the tensions among official, international organizations like the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, nongovernmental and private sector organizations, and some developing country governments. These tensions are commonly attributed to longstanding disagreements over such issues as labor rights, environmental standards, and tariff-cutting rules. In addition, developing countries are increasingly resentful of the burdens of adjustment placed on them that they argue are not matched by commensurate commitments from developed countries. Challenges to Globalization evaluates the arguments of pro-globalists and anti-globalists regarding issues such as globalization's relationship to democracy, its impact on the environment and on labor markets including the brain drain, sweat shop labor, wage levels, and changes in production processes, and the associated expansion of trade and its effects on prices. Baldwin, Winters, and the contributors to this volume look at multinational firms, foreign investment, and mergers and acquisitions and present surprising findings that often run counter to the claim that multinational firms primarily seek countries with low wage labor. The book closes with papers on financial opening and on the relationship between international economic policies and national economic growth rates.
This book analyses key elements of the trade performance of the so-called BRIICS: Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa, in relation to the rest of the world, focusing on trade and other policies influencing that performance. It also presents a separate chapter for each country.
Ha-Joon Chang evaluates the role of the state in economics and development. In this collection of essays, he reviews theories and practices of state intervention as they have developed over two centuries of modern capitalism. He develops an institutionalist approach to the role of the state in economic change, and examines the issues involved in particular settings including industrial policy, trade policy, intellectual property rights, regulation, and strategies towards transnational corporations. He mounts a sophisticated theoretical and historical case for the continuing essential and constructive roles which the state can and must play in economic development.
This study systematically evaluates the economic consequences of globalization for India in the light of the attack of the critics against globalization on grounds of economic stagnation, ?deindustrialization,? ?denationalization,? destabilization, and impoverishment. On the basis of abundant qualitative and quantitative data, it strongly repudiates the case of the critics, and demonstrates that India has been a significant beneficiary of the globalization process. Instead of economic stagnation, India has seen acceleration in its average annual rate of economic growth. Instead of deindustrialization, there has been substantial industrial growth and, indeed, acceleration in the industrial growth rate.Instead of denationalization, business in India is now more competitive and is venturingforth into the global market; increased imports and the entry of foreign multinationalshave not swamped it; essentially, India is master of its own destiny. Instead of economicdestabilization, there has been since the paradigm shift in economic policy in 1991 a marked absence of economic crisis in India. And, instead of impoverishment, India hasseen a long and unprecedented period of welfare enhancement since it began its reintegration into the world economy in 1975; there has been a secular decline in povertysince then, while inequality has not increased much. The policy conclusion that flows from this experience is that India ought to be, in general, more open to globalization in the interest of sustaining the acceleration in economic growth and enhancing the welfare of its people. To this end it should push forward with the reform agenda.This is the twenty-second publication in Policy Studies, a peer-reviewed East-West Center Washington series that presents scholarly analysis of key contemporary domestic and international political, economic, and strategic issues affecting Asia in a policy relevant manner.
We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence millions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, and in which complex social forces intersect across continents. This is globalization. In the fifth edition of his bestselling Very Short Introduction Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing. From climate change to the Ebola virus, Donald Trump to Twitter, trade wars to China's growing global profile, Steger explores today's unprecedented levels of planetary integration as well as the recent challenges posed by resurgent national populism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Political scientists at the University of Manchester, with a little help from colleagues at other English institutions, explore how forces leading to the globalization of economic and political life are related to domestic and international political forces that might favor, impede, ameliorate, or even reverse the trend. They discuss governing the international trade regime during economic nationalism, national embeddedness and international production, international finance and the erosion of state policy, the globalization of health care policy, the restructuring of regional economics, and other topics. One of the 10 essays has been published previously. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Over the next 25 years developing countries will move to center stage in the global economy. Global Economic Prospects 2007 analyzes the opportunities - and stresses - this will create. While rich and poor countries alike stand to benefit, the integration process will make more acute stresses already apparent today - in income inequality, in labor markets, and in the environment. Over the next 25 years, rapid technological progress, burgeoning trade in goods and services, and integration of financial markets create the opportunity for faster long-term growth. However, some regions, notably Africa, are at risk of being left behind. The coming globalization will also see intensified stresses on the "global commons." Addressing global warming, preserving marine fisheries, and containing infectious diseases will require effective multilateral collaboration to ensure that economic growth and poverty reduction proceed without causing irreparable harm to future generations."
