[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Globalization
At this point we must, briefly, raise the question of whether globalization is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for a country. In one sense, the answer depends on your preferences – but not entirely. If we base the judgment on the value premise that globalization is good if it contributes to economic development and bad if it acts as an obstacle to development, we are on somewhat firmer ground. Using a standard definition (Meier, 1995, p. 7), economic development may be defined as sustained growth of real GDP or GNP per capita, provided that the distribution of income does not become more unequal and the number of ‘absolute’ poor (somehow defined) does not increase. Given this, the question boils down to whether globalization increases growth, reduces income inequalities and reduces poverty, or not.
Globalization, in turn, is concerned with increased flows of commodities, services, factors of production, technologies and information across national boundaries. This is hardly the place to review the debate on how these factors affect the three components in the definition of development. A book that deals directly with the issue offers the following ‘executive summary’ (McCulloch, Winters and Cirera, 2001, p. xxi):
In general, trade liberalization is an ally in the fight against poverty: it tends to increase average incomes, providing more resources with which to tackle poverty. And while it will generally affect income distribution, it does not appear to do so in a systematically adverse way. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that most trade reforms will hurt someone, possibly pushing them into, or deeper into, poverty, and that some reforms may increase overall poverty even while they boost incomes in total. Thus, despite the general presumption in favor of trade liberalization, there remain important public policy questions of how to implement it in a way that maximizes its benefits for poverty alleviation and what to do about any poverty that it does create or exacerbate.......
