Why Economic Growth Trends Differ So Much across Developing Countries in the Era of Globalisation

The claim of globalisation critics that the income gap with industrial countries is bound to widen for essentially all developing countries as a consequence of economic globalisation is in conflict with empirical evidence. Economic performance differs tremendously across developing countries. We discuss several factors such as capital accumulation, openness to trade, and foreign indebtedness which may explain the varying experience with globalisation in regard to per capita income growth and income distribution. Economic restructuring is shown to represent an important—though frequently neglected—link between globalisation and country-specific performance. We conclude that national policy-makers continue to have effective leverage to promote economic catching-up and poverty alleviation in the countries they govern.

Latin America 2040 — Breaking Away from Complacency: An Agenda for Resurgence

Latin America

Policies for promoting technological catching up: towards post-Washington approach

This paper analyses the evolution of policies for technology catch-up through three periods: import-substitution, (augmented) Washington consensus and post-Washington period. We analyse the dominant policy models and practices in each of these periods as co-evolving with the dominant academic ideas, and changing the conditions for catching-up. We develop several dimensions or building blocks that characterise the policies for technology catch-up. These dimensions are used to characterise each of the three policy periods with the objective of outlining the generic features of an emerging post-Washington approach to technology catch-up policies in relation to past approaches

Policies for promoting technological catch up: a post-Washington approach

This paper analyzes the evolution of policies for technology catch-up through three periods: the import substitution period, the (augmented) Washington Consensus period and the post-Washington period. We analyze the dominant policy models and practices in each of these periods as co-evolving with the dominant academic ideas, thereby changing the conditions for catching up. We develop several dimensions or building blocks that characterize the policies for technology catch-up. These dimensions are used to characterize each of the three policy periods with the objective of outlining the generic features of an emerging post-Washington approach to technology catch-up policies in relation to past approaches

Economic Crises and Institutions for Regional Economic Cooperation

This paper examines the extent to which economic crises facilitate the development of more effective regional institutions and whether such institutions can shield regions from crises. It compares six regional economic crises over the last four decades and the institution building—or decay—that followed. The analysis concludes that five conditions are especially important in generating a constructive regional response: (i) a significant degree of regional economic interdependence; (ii) an independent secretariat or intergovernmental body charged with cooperation; (iii) webs of interlocking economic agreements; and, as elements of the multilateral context, (iv) conflict with the relevant international organization (such as the International Monetary Fund [IMF]); and (v) the support of the United States. The paper then reviews three episodes of crises in Europe, concluding that the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has deflected balance of payments and currency crises but not crises of other types, such as sovereign debt crises. Asian regionalism would be well served by heads of government taking the lead and delegating tasks to intergovernmental networks and secretariats, central banks and finance ministries retaining substantial collective autonomy in their fields of responsibility, and the use of concentric circles to accommodate countries with different levels of commitment to regionalism.Economic crises; financial crises; regional institutions; Asian regionalism; regional integration

The Impact of International Trade on Economic Growth

In this paper, we examine the studies, since Adam Smith, on the impact of commercial and technological aspects, resulting from international trade, on the physical accumulation and quality of productive factors. We remark that the theory of economic growth and the theory of international trade, during the ‘classic period’, constituted two inseparable branches of economics. In this epoch, it was believed that international trade has a positive effect on the economic growth. Later, during the ‘neoclassic period’, these two theories of the economic thought became autonomous relatively to each other. Consequently, the importance of international trade was neglected in the context of economic growth, especially until the 1960’s. Recently, with the introduction of models of endogenous growth, both theories have merged again. The modelling frameworks advanced by the new models, as well as the recent developments inside the international trade theory, has allowed us to obtain a better understanding of the relation between economic growth and international trade.economic growth, international trade, endogenous growth, comparative advantages, developed countries, less developed countries.

Globalization and the Human Development Trap

The feeble results of liberalization policies in Latin America are explained in terms of a multiple steady state model including a dynamic human development trap, endogenous technological change, technology transfer and trade. Divergent and convergent steady states, with and without a human development trap, exist under both autarchy and free trade. The model explains why import substitution is inferior to export promotion. While globalization is a necessary condition for convergence to development, it is not sufficient. Both trade and foreign direct investment create innovation assymetries hindering lagging countries that need to be balanced with export promotion and technological transfer for their successful integration with the global economy. In addition, so long as the human development trap persists, unskilled and skilled workers will have a conflict of interest between supporting human capital investment and innovation. If only innovation is supported, the human capital trap will persist. If mainly human capital investment is pursued, technology levels will fall behind; switching to innovation will be necessary eventually. The world growth rate is maximized by regulating globalization so as to attain development in all countries.trade, investment, technology

GLOBALIZATION MYTHS: SOME HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS ON INTEGRATION, INDUSTRIALIZATION AND GROWTH IN THE WORLD ECONOMY

It has become popular to draw a parallel between current globalization trends and the half century of international economic integration before the First World War. Indeed, some writers suggest that current trends mark a return to this earlier period, from which they draw strong conclusions about growth prospects and convergence associated with globalization. This paper assesses this historical parallel. It accepts that many features of today´s international economy are not unique. However, it is sceptical of efforts to make a direct parallel with the earlier period. In particular, the paper shows that the period before 1913 was not one of trade liberalization, nor one of reduced expectations about the role of the State, and suggests that rapid industrial growth in some economies cannot be explained by globalization pressures. More generally, a description of this earlier period of globalization as one of rapid growth and convergence is questioned, and instead associated with uneven economic development, during which a very small group of countries were able to reinforce their domestic growth efforts through links to the international economy, while for others these same links did little to alter long-term growth prospects, and in some cases even hindered them.

Latin America and Foreign Capital in the Twentieth Century: Economics, Politics, and Institutional Change

Latin America began the twentieth century as a relatively poor region on the periphery of the world economy. One cause of a low level of income per person was capital scarcity. Long run growth via capital deepening requires either the mobilization of domestic capital through savings, or large inflows of foreign capital. Latin America's capital inflows were large by global standards at the century's turn, and even up to the 1930s. But after the 1930s, Latin America was not so favored by foreign capital as compared with other peripheral regions for example, the Asian economies. The Great Depression is conventionally depicted as a turning point in Latin America for commercial policy and protectionism, thus marking the onset of import substitution and a long-run increase in barriers in international goods markets. However, this paper argues that policy responses in the 1930s, and subsequent decades of relative economic retardation, can be better understood as the cause and effect of the creation of long-run barriers in international capital markets. To support this notion, I discuss the quantitative extent of these barriers and their effects on economic growth. As for causality, I argue that the political economy of institutional changes in the 1930s in the periphery might be understood in similar terms to those economic historians have used to discuss the macroeconomic crisis in the core. Such a political-economy model might thus have universal (rather than core-specific) use. It might predict the 'reactive' and 'passive' responses by periphery countries to external shocks, and the persistence of such shocks in the postwar period. In conclusion, I touch on the important implications of these ideas for the current situation in Latin America, where recent policy reforms aim to undo the last sixty years of isolation and reintegrate Latin America into the global economy.