Download globalisation and convergence

Abstract
Most people today live in economies that, while far poorer than the leading-edge
post-industrial nations of the world’s economic core, have successfully climbed
onto the escalator of modern economic growth. Yet relative differences across
national economies in productivity levels are greater than ever before. Why has
the "convergence club" of countries whose economies are converging and
closing the relative gap vis-à-vis the productivity levels, technology levels, and
living standards of the industrial core been so small?
Back before 1870 the world's "convergence club" was very small. Between 1870
and 1914 the "convergence club" expands considerably. International trade,
international investment, international migration, and international conquest
profoundly affected economic, social, and political structures throughout the
world, and led to convergence in the North Atlantic and what Arthur Lewis
called the regions of temperate European settlement. Moreover, during the
interwar era of globalisation retreat the world's "convergence club" continued to
expand and gained at least footholds in all continents.
The post-World War II period has seen the "convergence club" expand and
contract massively, as many economies have joined and many dropped out. Why
the change in the shape of the "convergence club" after World War II?
First, we stress the difficulty that a poorer economy has in joining the
convergence club. The poorer countries are characterised, relative to the richer
groups, by high prices of investment goods and low rates of real investment, by
low levels of education, by high population growth, low values of openness on
the Sachs & Warner (SW) index, low trade-to-GDP ratios, and low growth of
the working age relative to total population. All these are powerful structural
discouragaments to convergence. Sachs and Warner argue that globalisation can
help overcome these structural blockages, and promoted both growth and
convergence--that is, faster growth for poorer countries--but only with relatively
free movement of goods and capital. We confirm that Sachs and Warner's
finding is more robust than anyone running cross-country growth regressions has
any right to expect. However, poorer countries benefit less from openness than
do rich countries. The failure of the world’s poorest countries to catch-up on the
income levels of the richest countries over the past four decades is attributable to
the poverty trap conditions of subsistence income, low savings and investment,
low levels of education and high fertility. Openness to the world economy does
appear to provide a significant boost to growth. A large number of the poorer
countries have opened their economies since 1980. Poor countries remain poor,
and so finding the resources to support mass education remains difficult.