Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality since 1980
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This is interesting yet some of it is surprising and ...100% ac-
curate? It may look impressive, but it depicts change over 25
years (1981 to now...). I do not have the time right now to get
into the PDF file below. Any of our readers can do it and post
her/his findings for all of us?
Claudio Schuftan
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn
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Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality since 1980
By David Dollar
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No.: 3333 - September
28, 2004
Available online as PDF file [46 pp. 482 kB] at:
http://econ.worldbank.org/files/39000_wps3333.pdf
One of the most contentious issues of globalization is the ef-
fect of global economic integration on inequality and poverty.
Dollar documents five trends in the modern era of globalization,
starting around 1980:
Trend 1: Poor country growth rates have accelerated and are
higher than rich country growth rates-for the first time in mod-
ern history. The developing world economy grew at more than 3.5
percent per capita in the 1990s.
Trend 2: The number of poor people in the world has declined
significantly-by 375 million people since 1981-the first such
decline in history. The share of the developing world population
living on less than $1 a day was cut in half since 1981.
Trend 3: Global inequality (among citizens of the world) has de-
clined-modestly-reversing a 200-year-old trend toward higher
inequality.
Trend 4: There is no general trend toward higher inequality
within countries.
Trend 5: Wage inequality is rising worldwide (which may seem to
contradict trend 4, but it does not because wages are a small
part of household income in developing countries, which make up
the bulk of the world in terms of countries and population).
Furthermore, the trends toward faster growth and poverty reduc-
tion are strongest in the developing countries in which there
has been the most rapid integration with the global economy,
supporting the view that integration has been a positive force
for improving people's lives in the developing world.