Poverty reduction through liberalisation? Neoliberalism and the myth of global convergence

Review of International Studies

Volumn 33, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 415-434

  Kiely, Ray ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34547278898     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210507007589     Document Type: Article

References (98)

1. World Bank, Global Economic Prospects and Developing Countries - Making Trade Work for the Poor (Washington: World Bank, 2002), p. 30.
2. Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, 'How Have the World's Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s', World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, no.3341 (2004), at: 〈http.econ.worldbank.org〉.
3. World Bank, World Development Report 2000/01 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
4. Surjit Bhalla, Imagine There's No Country (Washington: Institute of International Economics, 2002);
5. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 'The World Distribution of Income (Estimated from Individual Country Contributions)', NBER Working Papers no.8933 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2002).
6. See: 〈www.un.org/millenniumgoals〉. The proposed reduction has been backdated, so that it starts from 1990, and not when the goals were adopted in 2000.
7. A third, and wider question also arises, which is the extent to which income itself is a useful measure of poverty. This is an important debate, but is not the main concern of this article. Briefly, it is fair to say that income is not a sufficient measure, but it remains a central factor in any adequate measurement of poverty and inequality, and there is some correlation between economic growth and wider social development indicators, even if this is not as straightforward as neoliberals claim. Also, the principal focus on income measurements in this article is justified by the fact that it takes issue with neoliberal claims about poverty and inequality on their terms. Moreover, one of the ironies of using the less economistic human development index is that this is bound to show considerable evidence of convergence, and therefore could be used to support the neoliberal case. This is because two of the components of the HDI (education and life expectancy, the other is PPP per capita income) are bound to slow down the higher the gain in education and life expectancy. For example, one cannot have a literacy rate beyond 100 per cent, and gains in life expectancy are bound to be slower once the average reaches a level above 70, at least compared to countries where life expectancy may only be in the forties. Any gains made by poorer countries therefore register as a movement towards convergence.
8. The precise figure is $1.08 a day, based on PPP, but the $1 a day figure is still drawn on as a headline number.
9. Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge, 'How Not to Count the Poor' (2003);
10. and T. Thomas Pogge (2004), 'The First UN Millennium Development Goal: A Cause for Celebration?' (2004), both at: 〈www.socialanalysis.org〉.
11. Reddy and Pogge, 'How Not to Count the Poor', pp. 27, 46-7.
12. Branko Milanovic, The Ricardian Vice: Why Sala-i-Martin's Calculations of World Income Inequality are Wrong, (2002) at: 〈http://ideas.repec. org〉.
13. World Bank, World Development Report 1999/2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 25.
14. Reddy and Pogge, 'How Not to Count the Poor', p. 42.
15. See: 〈www.worldbank.org/research/povmonitor〈.
16. Andrew Sumner, 'Epistemology and "Evidence" in Development Studies: A Review of Dollar and Kraay', Third World Quarterly, 25:6 (2004), p. 1169.
17. Robert Wade, 'On the Causes of Increasing World Poverty and Inequality, or Why the Matthew Effect Prevails', New Political Economy, 9:2 (2004), pp. 163-88.
18. See the debate between Robert Wade and Martin Wolf, 'Are Global Poverty and Inequality Getting Worse?', Prospect, March (2002), pp. 16-21.
19. Ibid.
20. Robert Wade, 'On the Causes of Increasing World Poverty and Inequality, or Why the Matthew Effect Prevails', pp. 166-7.
21. Martin Wolf in Robert Wade and Martin Wolf, 'Are Global Poverty and Inequality Getting Worse', pp. 16-17.
22. World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
23. and David Dollar and Aart Kraay, 'Growth is Good for the Poor', Journal of Economic Growth, 7 (2002), pp. 195-225.
24. Anthony Giddens, The Third Way and its Critics (Cambridge: Polity, 2000).
25. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), pp. 103, 112; (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2004), p. 3.
26. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2004, p. 114.
27. Sumner, A Review of Dollar and Kraay', p. 1174.
28. Branko Milanovic, 'The Two Faces of Globalisation: Against Globalisation as we Know It', World Development, 31:4 (2003), p. 674.
29. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2002, part 2, ch. 3.
30. World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty, p. 30.
31. Dani Rodrik, The Global Governance of Trade as if Development Really Mattered (Geneva: United Nations Development Programme, 2001).
32. Dani Rodrik, 'Comments on "Trade, Growth and Poverty" by D. Dollar and A. Kraay', (2000), Table 1, at: 〈www.ksghome.harvard.edu〉.
33. Sumner, A Review of Dollar and Kraay', p. 1174.
34. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2004, pp. 16-17.
35. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2002, pp. 115-19.
36. Rhys Jenkins, 'Globalization, Production, Employment and Poverty: Debates and Evidence', Journal of International Development, 16:1 (2004), pp. 1-12;
37. Rhys Jenkins, 'Globalisation of Production, Employment and Poverty: Three Macro-Meso-Micro Studies', European Journal of Development Research, 17:4 (2005), pp. 601-25.
38. See, for instance, World Bank, World Development Report 1997 (Washington: World Bank, 1997).
39. See the critical discussion, in K. S. Jomo and Ben Fine (eds.), The New Development Economics (London: Zed Books, 2006).
40. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2004, p. 35.
41. World Bank, Globalization, Growth and Poverty, p. 30.
42. Hans Singer, 'The Distribution of Gains from Trade between Investing and Borrowing Countries', American Economic Review, 40 (1950), pp. 473-85;
43. Raul Prebisch, 'Commercial Policy in the Underdeveloped Countries', American Economic Review, 44 (1959), pp. 251-73.
44. See among others, Prabirjit Sarkar and Hans Singer, 'Manufactured Exports of Developing countries and their Terms of Trade', World Development, 19:4 (1991), pp. 333-40;
45. Prem-chandra Athukorala, 'Manufactured Exports from Developing Countries and their Terms of Trade: A Re-examination of the Sarkar-Singer Results', World Development, 21:10 (1993), pp. 1607-14;
46. Prabirjit Sarkar, 'Growth and Terms of Trade: A North South Macroeconomic Framework', Journal of Macroeconomics, 19:1 (1997), pp. 117-33;
47. Alfred Maizels, 'The Manufacturing Terms of Trade of Developing countries with the US, 1981-97', Working Paper no. 36 (Oxford: Queen Elizabeth House, 1999);
48. Alfred Maizels, Theodosios Palaskas and Trevor Crowe, 'The Prebisch Singer Hypothesis Revisited', in David Sapford and John-ren Chen (eds.), Development Economics and Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998);
49. Raphael Kaplinsky and Amelia Santos-Paulinho, 'Innovation and Competitiveness: Trends in Unit Prices in Global Trade', Oxford Development Studies, 33:3/4 (2005), pp. 333-55;
50. Peter Robbins, Stolen. Fruit (London: Zed Books, 2003).
51. UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), p. 51.
52. Gordon White (ed.), Developmental States in East Asia (London: Macmillan, 1988);
53. Alice Amsden, Asia's Next Giant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989);
54. Robert Wade, Governing the Market (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990);
55. Kevin Gallagher (ed.), Putting Development First (London: Zed Books, 2005).
56. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), p. 7;
57. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2006 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2006), pp. 23-7.
58. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2004 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2004), p. 4.
59. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2006 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2006), p. 3.
60. See among others, Gary Gereffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz (eds.), Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Westport: Praeger, 1994);
61. Peter Dicken, Global Shift, 3rd edn. (London: Sage, 2003);
62. Peter Dicken, Philip Kelly, Kris Olds and Henry Wai-Cheung Yeng, 'Chains and Networks, Territories and Scales: Towards a Relational Framework for Analysing the World Economy', Global Networks, 1:2 (2001), pp. 89-112;
63. Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte, Trading Down (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2005).
64. Gary Gereffi, 'Capitalism, Development and Global Commodity Chains', in Leslie Skiair (ed.), Capitalism and Development (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 211-31.
65. Raphael Kaplinsky, Globalization, Poverty and Inequality (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), p. 64.
66. While this report did not find supermarkets guilty of abusing their market position, the findings are more interesting than the final report. Moreover, the chair of the report, John Bridgeman, has since said that there is a need for another report as market share becomes ever more concentrated in the retail sector. See Felicity Lawrence 'Former OFT chief urges inquiry into "abuse" of market position by supermarkets', The Guardian, 10 November 2005. In early 2006, a new inquiry was announced by the Competition Commission.
67. Out of 2,600 suppliers, Tesco had only eight whose share of total intake exceeded 1 per cent and only 230 with a share higher than 0.1 per cent. See Gibbon and Ponte, Trading Down, p. 20.
68. Anthony D' Costa, 'Uneven and Combined Development: Understanding India's Software Exports', World Development, 31:1 (2002), pp. 211-26.
69. UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), p. 51.
70. Andrew Glyn, Capitalism Unleashed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 91.
71. Glyn, Capitalism Unleashed, p. 97.
72. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2006, pp. 6-7.
73. The top ten countries in 2000 were Hong Kong (still counted separately from China), China, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chile, and South Korea. See UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2001 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2001), Annex Table B3.
74. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2006, p. 4.
75. Bill Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), p. 59.
76. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2006, pp. 3-4.
77. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2002 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002), p. 5.
78. James Petras, 'Six Myths about the Benefits of Foreign Investment', (2005), at: 〈www.counterpunch.org/petras〉.
79. UNCTAD, Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures, p. 6.
80. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2002, p. 265.
81. UNCTAD, Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures, p. 4.
82. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2002, pp. 80-1.
83. Kaplinsky, Globalization, Poverty and Inequality, ch. 7.
84. Barry Eicheugreen, Yeongseop Rhee and Hui Tong (2004) 'The Impact of China on the Exports of Other Asian Countries'. Working Paper no.10768, NBER.
85. World Trade Organisation, International Trade Statistics 2005 (Geneva: WTO), p. 11.
86. Ibid., pp. 1-2.
87. World Bank, Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries (Washington: World Bank, 1999), p. 24.
88. Ilene Grabel, 'International Private Capital Flows and Developing Countries', in Ha Joon Chang (ed.), Rethinking Development Economics (London: Anthem, 2003), p. 327.
89. Alfredo Saad-Filho, 'The Political Economy of Neoliberalism in Latin America', in Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston (eds.), Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader (London: Pluto, 2005), p. 226.
90. Ha Joon Chang, Globalisation and the Economic Role of the State (London: Zed Books, 2003), ch. 7;
91. James Crotty, Gerald Epstein and Phil Kelly, 'Multinational Corporations in the Neoliberal Regime', in Dean Baker, Gerald Epstein and Robert Pollin (eds.), Globalization and Progressive Economic Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 117-43.
92. Robert Wade, 'Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality?', World Development, 32:4, pp. 568, 579.
93. Nicola Phillips, 'Globalization Studies in International Political Economy', in N. Phillips (ed.), Globalizing International Political Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 45.
94. Bob Rowthorn, 'Replicating the Experience of the NIEs on a Large Scale', in K. S. Jomo and Shyamala Nagaraj (eds.), Globalization versus Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 107.
95. Ray Kiely, Industrialization and Development (London: UCL Press, 1998), chs.8 and 9;
96. Ha Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder (London: Anthem, 2002);
97. Robert Wade, 'What strategies are viable for developing countries today? The World Trade Organization and the shrinking of "development space" ', Review of International Political Economy, 10 (2003), pp. 621-44.
98. Ray Kiely, The New Political Economy of Development (London: Palgrave, 2007), chs. 8 and 9.