The Scorecard on Globalization 1980–2000: Its Consequences for Economic and Social Well-Being

Abstract

The era of globalization has brought substantially less progress than was achieved in the preceding 20 years. This study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research concludes that the data provide no evidence that the policies associated with globalization have improved outcomes for developing countries, and its findings challenge economists and policymakers who cite globalization as an engine of growth while pressing for policies that strengthen the trend. The study also served as a backdrop to the release of the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report on July 11, 2001. Using standard measures of economic growth, health outcomes, education, and literacy, the CEPR study compares the progress achieved during the period preceding globalization, 1960-80, with the period from 1980 to 2000, which was characterized by the reduction of tariff and nontariff barriers to trade, the removal of restrictions on international investment flows, and increasing intervention by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on a wide range of economic and policy issues. While the evidence presented here does not prove that the policies associated with globalization were responsible for the deterioration in economic performance, it does present a very strong prima facie case that some structural and policy changes implemented during the last two decades are at least partly responsible for these declines.

British American Tobacco’s failure in Turkey

“…While the TTCs entry to Asia in the 1980s was largely a result of trade liberalisation, their entry to Latin America before this and to the former Communist countries since have largely resulted from investment liberalisation. In the latter, the TTCs benefited from trends to privatise national monopolies—either due to pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or because of national politics 9 – 12. The process of privatising national monopolies tends to occur in stages.…”

State size as measured in terms of public spending and world health, 1990-2000

“…Other authors conclude that if countries reduce their public spending they damage their basic indicators of health and education, associating these changes with the politics of globalization [36][37][38] . In this sense, other investigations-which like the present research-also explore the indirect implications of globalization, state size and the influence of the Welfare state on health, and which-as some have already done-identify links between other sectors of welfare and macro economy, will eventually prove important 39 .…”

The Impact of Exposure to Other Countries on Life Satisfaction: An International Application of the Relative Income Hypothesis

“…Most of these studies focus on the economic dimension of globalization (e.g. Bjørnskov et al 2008;Dluhosch and Horgos 2013;Weisbrot et al 2002;Xin and Smyth 2010) or use a very broad definition of globalization, combining several dimensions of globalization such as political, economic and social globalization (e.g. Hessami 2011; Sirgy et al 2004).…”