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

`Distilled from 450 papers submitted to three conferences, this fine collection offers a welcome antidote to the glib generalizations one often hears from both sides of the ongoing debate on globalization and poverty. The contextual factors in how the forces of globalization impinge on the lives of poor people are brought out well by the contrasting experiences of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The editors' excellent introduction links the volume's contributions to the broader literature.' Martin Ravallion, Director, World Bank Research Department.'

`Rooted in the awareness that the benefits of globalization may come to little if, we are unable to address the urgent problem of global poverty, Nissanke and Thorbecke's fine collection of papers draws on evidence and arguments from around the world. It is more than a good academic book; it is a field-guide for the practitioner. The usual combination of hard positive analysis with the right social concerns.'

Globalization and poverty epitomize two of the most pressing contemporary international development issues. Despite the enormous potential of globalization in accelerating 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 to illustrate the differential effects of globalization on growth, inequality, and poverty in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Significant differences in initial conditions---natural resource endowment, quantity and quality of human capital, institutional framework, and quality of governance---as well as distinct internal dynamic processes of institutional and socio-political change, triggered by the forces of economic integration, have influenced the poor in these regions in quite dissimilar ways. 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.

Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Adviser, Finance Ministry, Government of India and C. Marks Professor, Cornell University.
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 modelling, and international economics. The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measure has been adopted almost universally by international organizations and researchers doing empirical work on poverty.