Proceedings of the Conference on Globalization and Its Discontents

Abstract

This article investigates the social impact of globalization as measured by economic liberalization. This study attempts to answer four questions using cross-section of countries: Does globalization spur human development? Is globalization related to gender related economic development? Does globalization exacerbate income inequality? Finally, what is the impact of globalization on different income group? Regression analysis for cross-section of about 150 countries indicates that there is a strong relation between globalization and human development and gender related development indexes for entire counties. However, only high-income countries show a significant relation. One impression emerges from the study is that the key consideration in determining a country's position in human development ranking is not related to globalization for developing countries at low or low-middle income groups. Globalization perhaps is important for human development only after certain level of income growth. Also, the results indicate that globalization exacerbates income inequality is for the all income groups, but the relation does not hold when testing for different income levels.globalization, economic liberalization, income inequality