The Poor under Globalization in Asia, Latin America, and Africa

Globalization and poverty are two of the most pressing contemporary international development issues. Despite the enormous potential of globalization to accelerate economic growth and development, through greater integration into the world economy, the spread and transfer of technology, and the transmission of knowledge, its impact on poverty reduction has been uneven and even marginal in some regions. Both the prevalence and depth of poverty in many parts of the developing world remain unacceptably high.

This volume presents thirteen studies selected from the three regional conferences organized under the auspices of UNU-WIDER. They illustrate the differential effects of globalization on growth, inequality, and poverty in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Distinct processes of institutional and socio-political change, as well as significant differences in initial conditions, such as natural resource endowment, the quantity and quality of human capital, institutional framework, and the quality of governance, have had diverse effects on the poor in these regions. Focusing on distinct manifestations of globalization and their affect on poverty, these case studies cover the spectrum from broad macroeconomic regional and country analyses to micro-oriented village studies in each of the three continents. This volume clearly illustrates that the impact of globalization on poverty is extremely context specific, reflecting the heterogeneous and complex nature of the globalization-poverty nexus.

Machiko Nissanke is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She previously worked at Birkbeck College, University College London and the University of Oxford, and was also Research Fellow of Nuffield College and the Overseas Development Institute. She has published numerous books and journal articles in financial and international economics, and has served many international organizations as advisor and coordinator of research programmes.

Erik Thorbecke is the H.E. Babcock Professor of Economics Emeritus, Graduate School Professor and former Director of the Program on Comparative Economic Development at Cornell University. He has published extensively in the areas of economic and agricultural development, the measurement and analysis of poverty and malnutrition, the Social Accounting Matrix and general equilibrium modeling, and international economics. The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measure has been adopted almost universally by international organizations and researchers doing empirical work on poverty.