Globalization and the Challenge for Developing Countries

Yusuf, Shahid

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    ADVERTISING;    AGING;    AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2618
RP-ID  :  WPS2618

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Rsearch on the sources of growth showsseveral factors to be relevant to all countries, rich orpoor. Whether developing countries can substantially raiseper capita incomes depends on policies that address thesevariables: labor, human capital, capital investment inresearch and development, technological progress, and theincrease in total factor productivity arising from scaleeconomies, the effects of agglomeration, externalities, andinstitutions that secure rights and minimize transactioncosts. The author argues that a comprehensive approach toglobalization, managed, and abetted by good policies, canmagnify the effects of growth-promoting measures. Among hisobservations: 1) Returns from investment in skills are muchgreater in a more technologically advanced and integratedeconomy. 2) Trade, by enlarging markets, reinforces thosegains, and the option to migrate further augments the valueof skills. The growing worldwide gap in income betweenskilled and unskilled workers suggests how much morefruitful skills are under globalization. 3) A 50 percentincrease (or even a doubling) in growth rates demands a vastamount of capital, embodying modern technology and theknowledge needed to put it to best use. The internationaleconomy can be a source of such capital. 4) Openness,combined with spatially neutral domestic policies and thescaling back of regulatory constraints on domestic businessactivities, can unleash the full force of agglomerationeconomies and networking externalities, allowing industrialclusters to emerge in metropolitan regions. 5) Openness isalso the best way for low-income countries to tap intotechnologies that will galvanize agriculture (low-incomecountries' economic center) and manufacturingactivities and nourish indigenous technological advance. 6)No research convincingly makes the case for delayingopenness or for sequencing the various elements of openness.A good case can be made for embracing all the key elementsof globalization at the same time--while sequencing (whereneeded) the pace of integration in such areas as trade and finance.