The Gains from Globalization Appear Enormous
J. Bradford DeLong
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/
December 2001
- Opponents of globalisation claim that poor countries are losers from global integration.
- But if you divide poor countries into those that are more and less globalized, more globalized poor countries have grown faster than rich countries.
- Since 1980 manufactures have risen from 25% of poor-country exports in 1980 to more than 80% in 1998.
- Manufacturing export growth has been concentrated in two dozen countries, chief among them China, India and Mexico, that are home to 3 billion people. These economies have doubled their ratio of trade to national income. And the 1990s their GDP per head grew by an annual average of 5%.
- For the 2 billion people who live in the non-globalizing rest of the developing world, the story is very different. Trade has fallen relative to GDP. Income per capita has grown slowly, or has shrunk. And poverty has risen.