Globalization has brought many benefits, yet there is growing contention over how these benefits are shared and increasing recognition that globalized markets require greatly improved global governance. CGD examines the types of rules-based international systems needed to tackle global poverty and create a more equitable, stable, and prosperous global economy. Globalization has brought many benefits, yet there is growing contention over how these benefits are shared and increasing recognition that globalized markets require greatly improved global governance. CGD examines the types of rules-based international systems needed to tackle global poverty and create a more equitable, stable, and prosperous global economy.
Making globalization work for poor people is a unifying paradigm for much of CGD’s research and analysis. We seek to increase and improve developing countries’ access to the benefits of an ever more interconnected world. We also strive to influence rich-country policies to lessen protectionism, to provide incentives for technology transfer, and to ease restrictions on the movement of people.
CGD president Nancy Birdsall leads the Center’s work on the politics and economics of globalization. She is co-chair, together with Carol Graham, senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, of the Globalization and Inequality Group (GLIG), an invitation-only working group hosted jointly by CGD and the Brookings Institution. The GLIG serves as a forum for discussion of new research and as a means to inform the debate in the longer term. It meets about four times a year.
The world dramatically experienced some of the negative consequences of globalization during the food price crisis in 2008 and the financial crisis of 2009. The Center’s researchers study how these shocks affected developing countries and how potential consequences can be ameliorated through improved policies and practices.
Newest
Popular
Publications
Experts
Initiatives
Multimedia
-
What happens when capital and sophisticated goods flow uphill, from poorer to richer countries? With a new dataset of foreign direct investment and a measure of the sophistication of exports, CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and his co-author Aaditya Mattoo find that developing countries sending goods and services uphill experience economic growth and other development benefits.
-
This working paper examines the relationship between high inequality and liberalization of the financial sector in Latin America from 1975 to 2000. Using panel data, the authors find that increases in financial liberalization were associated with bank crises and other domestic and external shocks, and that higher schooling inequality reduces the impetus for liberalization brought on by bank crises.
-
Visiting fellow Nora Lustig examines the policy dilemmas rising food prices force on developing countries. Letting prices adjust can generate inflationary pressure while efforts to stabilize domestic prices often exacerbate global price increases; during the recent food price crisis, many countries chose instead to shift the burden back to international markets.
-
Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report, and a senior political analyst for CNN, David Gergen joined CGD president Nancy Birdsall, and CGD senior fellows who authored essays in our recent book, The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, for a lively discussion of the prospects for improved U.S. development policy under President Barack Obama.
-
The next U.S. president has a great opportunity to lead regional
economic integration in the Americas, to the benefit of both the
United States and Latin America. For the Americas, the high hopes of a decade ago for a
hemispheric trade agreement have faded, along with confidence
in the region’s ability to act collectively to address fundamental
economic challenges. The model for integration outlined here is a regional investment standards agreement—a collective effort to set common standards for key microeconomic policies affecting both domestic and foreign businesses.
-
The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global Development experts offer fresh perspectives and practical advice on trade policy, migration, foreign aid, climate change and more. In an introductory essay, CGD President Nancy Birdsall explains why and how the next U.S. president must lead in the creation of a better, safer world.
-
Successful poverty reduction hinges on successful structural transformation, but poor countries must cope with political pressures resulting from deteriorating income distribution and simultaneously retain the policies that generate rapid economic growth. Based on historical and statistical evidence, CGD non-resident fellow Peter Timmer and Selvin Akkus argue for enacting policies to do just that: policies that value the many non-market payoffs of investment in agriculture, the main driver of short- and medium-term poverty reduction; context-specific policies to connect rural workers to urban economies to reduce rural poverty in the long term; and fairer rich-world agricultural trade policies to allow small farmers better access to domestic supply chains.
-
In this CGD Essay, visiting fellow Nancy Lee provides the full details and policy recommendations for a strategy of regional investment integration in the Americas. The essay, excerpted from her chapter in the forthcoming White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, builds on a previously published CGD Note by specifying the scope of the proposed agreement, outlining its expected gains, and identifying the initial steps the United States could take to encourage a fresh agreement to be reached.
-
The loss of rice production in Myanmar is worsening the crisis in world rice markets, where prices have trebled this year. Meanwhile, Japan has 1.5 million tons of surplus rice, most of it imported from the U.S. Releasing this rice to global markets would prick a speculative bubble and bring rice prices down fast, while also encouraging China and Thailand to release their surplus stocks. But first Washington must lift its objections and Japan must decide to re-export rice that it imported from the U.S., Thailand, and Vietnam. Failure to act would mean that high-quality U.S. rice would be fed to Japanese pigs and chickens while millions of poor people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Tom Slayton, a former editor of The Rice Trader, and Peter Timmer, CGD non-resident fellow and visiting professor at Stanford University, explain how prompt action could prevent the rice price crisis from becoming a hunger crisis.
Learn More
-
In an increasingly globalized world, inequality is an issue of rising concern, especially in Latin America, home to many of the world's most unequal societies. This new book, co-published by the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue, describes the links between recent growth trends, changing patterns of inequality, and rising cynicism and frustration with the political leadership across the region. The authors, Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes, present a dozen economic policy tools to make life fairer for the great majority of people--without sacrificing economic growth.
Learn More
-
This controversial book argues that irresistible demographic forces for greater international labor mobility are being checked by immovable anti-immigration ideas of rich-country citizens. Pritchett proposes breaking the gridlock through policies that support development while also being politically acceptable in rich countries. These include greater use of temporary worker permits, permit rationing, reliance on bilateral rather than multilateral agreements, and protection of migrants' fundamental human rights.
-
The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global Development experts offer fresh perspectives and practical advice on trade policy, migration, foreign aid, climate change and more. In an introductory essay, CGD President Nancy Birdsall explains why and how the next U.S. president must lead in the creation of a better, safer world.
-
Large numbers of African nurses and doctors are emigrating to the U.S., U.K., Australia and other rich countries. These movements strain local health systems and deprive sick people of urgently needed care. Right? Think again. What if wages and working conditions in city slums and rural villages are so dismal that trained health workers are unwilling to work there, regardless of migration options? What if the possibility of migration actually causes more people in developing countries to train as health care workers? Drawing on a new database of health worker emigration from Africa, CGD research fellow Michael Clemens finds that the conventional wisdom about the impact of doctors and nurses migration is entirely wrong. Visas, he concludes, do not kill. Learn more
-
In an increasingly globalized world, inequality is an issue of rising concern, especially in Latin America, home to many of the world's most unequal societies. This new book, co-published by the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue, describes the links between recent growth trends, changing patterns of inequality, and rising cynicism and frustration with the political leadership across the region. The authors, Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes, present a dozen economic policy tools to make life fairer for the great majority of people--without sacrificing economic growth.
Learn More
-
Aid and trade are over-rated when it comes to helping reduce poverty, according to this provocative Foreign Affairs article by Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, and Arvind Subramanian. Neglected issues, such as giving poor nations more space for policy making, financing R&D for vaccines and other new technology, and easing restrictions on migrant labor, are potentially more important, they argue.
-
Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report, and a senior political analyst for CNN, David Gergen joined CGD president Nancy Birdsall, and CGD senior fellows who authored essays in our recent book, The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, for a lively discussion of the prospects for improved U.S. development policy under President Barack Obama.
-
Development refers to improvements in the conditions of people’s lives, such as health, education, and income. It occurs at different rates in different countries. The U.S. underwent its own version of development since the time it became an independent nation in 1776.
Learn more about Rich World, Poor World: A Guide to Global Development
-
This working paper examines the relationship between high inequality and liberalization of the financial sector in Latin America from 1975 to 2000. Using panel data, the authors find that increases in financial liberalization were associated with bank crises and other domestic and external shocks, and that higher schooling inequality reduces the impetus for liberalization brought on by bank crises.
-
A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis is a reformist manifesto that argues that gradual institutional change can produce beneficial results if it is driven by an ambitious long-term vision and by a determination to continually widen the limits of the possible.
-
Successful poverty reduction hinges on successful structural transformation, but poor countries must cope with political pressures resulting from deteriorating income distribution and simultaneously retain the policies that generate rapid economic growth. Based on historical and statistical evidence, CGD non-resident fellow Peter Timmer and Selvin Akkus argue for enacting policies to do just that: policies that value the many non-market payoffs of investment in agriculture, the main driver of short- and medium-term poverty reduction; context-specific policies to connect rural workers to urban economies to reduce rural poverty in the long term; and fairer rich-world agricultural trade policies to allow small farmers better access to domestic supply chains.
-
Pranab Bardhan, Non-Resident Fellow Pranab Bardhan is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley where he has been since 1977. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, Bardhan was a professor at MIT and the Delhi School of Economics. Bardhan was the Chief Editor of the Journal of Development Economic, and the co-chair of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on the Effects of Inequality on Economic Performance. From 2008-2009 Bardhan held the distinguished Fulbright Siena Chair at the University of Siena, Italy, and from 2010-2011 Bardhan will be the BP Centennial Professor at London School of Economics.
-
Nancy Birdsall, President An internationally recognized expert on the impact of rich-country policies on poor people in developing countries, Nancy Birdsall is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books and over 100 articles in scholarly journals and monographs, published in English and Spanish. Her most recent book is Cash on Delivery: A New Approach to Foreign Aid.
-
Kimberly Ann Elliott, Senior Fellow Kimberly Ann Elliott is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles on a variety of trade policy and globalization issues, including uses of economic leverage in international negotiations (both economic sanctions for foreign policy goals and trade threats and sanctions in commercial disputes). Her most recent book is Delivering on Doha: Farm Trade and the Poor, which was co-published by CGD and the Peterson Institute (PIIE) in July 2006.
-
Todd Moss, Vice President for Corporate Affairs, and Senior Fellow Todd Moss works on U.S.-Africa relations and financial issues facing sub-Saharan Africa, including policies that affect private capital flows, natural resource management, debt, and aid.
-
-
Paul Romer, Non-Resident Fellow Paul Romer is a senior fellow in the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). He has taught at Standford’s Graduate School of Business, UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the Recktenwald Prize in Economics. Romer earned a B.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He is the founder of www.CharterCities.org.
-
Sarah Jane Staats, Director of Policy Outreach Sarah Jane Staats is responsible for engaging the development policy community - especially senior staff in the U.S. Congress, the administration, and policy experts in leading development advocacy NGOs - in the Center's research and other programs. This week, on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, she looks at President Obama's first budget request and what it might mean for U.S. support to global development.
-
-
Schooling Inequality, Crises, and Financial Liberalization in Latin America - Working Paper 165
- Mar 21, 2009
This working paper examines the relationship between high inequality and liberalization of the financial sector in Latin America from 1975 to 2000. Using panel data, the authors find that increases in financial liberalization were associated with bank crises and other domestic and external shocks, and that higher schooling inequality reduces the impetus for liberalization brought on by bank crises.
-
Coping with Rising Food Prices: Policy Dilemmas in the Developing World - Working Paper 164
- Mar 19, 2009
Visiting fellow Nora Lustig examines the policy dilemmas rising food prices force on developing countries. Letting prices adjust can generate inflationary pressure while efforts to stabilize domestic prices often exacerbate global price increases; during the recent food price crisis, many countries chose instead to shift the burden back to international markets.
-
More Growth with More Income Equality in the Americas: Can Regional Cooperation Help? (White House and the World Policy Brief)
- Nov 4, 2008
The next U.S. president has a great opportunity to lead regional
economic integration in the Americas, to the benefit of both the
United States and Latin America. For the Americas, the high hopes of a decade ago for a
hemispheric trade agreement have faded, along with confidence
in the region’s ability to act collectively to address fundamental
economic challenges. The model for integration outlined here is a regional investment standards agreement—a collective effort to set common standards for key microeconomic policies affecting both domestic and foreign businesses.
-
The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President
- Aug 22, 2008
The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global Development experts offer fresh perspectives and practical advice on trade policy, migration, foreign aid, climate change and more. In an introductory essay, CGD President Nancy Birdsall explains why and how the next U.S. president must lead in the creation of a better, safer world.
-
The Structural Transformation as a Pathway out of Poverty: Analytics, Empirics and Politics - Working Paper 150
- Jul 23, 2008
Successful poverty reduction hinges on successful structural transformation, but poor countries must cope with political pressures resulting from deteriorating income distribution and simultaneously retain the policies that generate rapid economic growth. Based on historical and statistical evidence, CGD non-resident fellow Peter Timmer and Selvin Akkus argue for enacting policies to do just that: policies that value the many non-market payoffs of investment in agriculture, the main driver of short- and medium-term poverty reduction; context-specific policies to connect rural workers to urban economies to reduce rural poverty in the long term; and fairer rich-world agricultural trade policies to allow small farmers better access to domestic supply chains.
-
Integration in the Americas: One Idea for Plan B (Essay)
- Jun 16, 2008
In this CGD Essay, visiting fellow Nancy Lee provides the full details and policy recommendations for a strategy of regional investment integration in the Americas. The essay, excerpted from her chapter in the forthcoming White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, builds on a previously published CGD Note by specifying the scope of the proposed agreement, outlining its expected gains, and identifying the initial steps the United States could take to encourage a fresh agreement to be reached.
-
Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis--If Washington and Tokyo Act
- May 9, 2008
The loss of rice production in Myanmar is worsening the crisis in world rice markets, where prices have trebled this year. Meanwhile, Japan has 1.5 million tons of surplus rice, most of it imported from the U.S. Releasing this rice to global markets would prick a speculative bubble and bring rice prices down fast, while also encouraging China and Thailand to release their surplus stocks. But first Washington must lift its objections and Japan must decide to re-export rice that it imported from the U.S., Thailand, and Vietnam. Failure to act would mean that high-quality U.S. rice would be fed to Japanese pigs and chickens while millions of poor people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Tom Slayton, a former editor of The Rice Trader, and Peter Timmer, CGD non-resident fellow and visiting professor at Stanford University, explain how prompt action could prevent the rice price crisis from becoming a hunger crisis.
Learn More
-
Fair Growth: Economic Policies for Latin America's Poor and Middle-Income Majority
- Jan 17, 2008
In an increasingly globalized world, inequality is an issue of rising concern, especially in Latin America, home to many of the world's most unequal societies. This new book, co-published by the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue, describes the links between recent growth trends, changing patterns of inequality, and rising cynicism and frustration with the political leadership across the region. The authors, Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes, present a dozen economic policy tools to make life fairer for the great majority of people--without sacrificing economic growth.
Learn More
-
The Chinese Aid System
- Jun 27, 2007
Chinese foreign aid is rising fast and Western aid agencies are concerned: will Chinese aid undermine efforts to promote reform in Africa and elsewhere? Will Chinese loans burden poor countries with fresh debt? In this new essay, CGD visiting fellow Carol Lancaster provides a concise and accessible overview of what is known--and not known--about the Chinese aid system. She advises aid agencies in Europe, North America and Japan to increase communication and to seek opportunities for collaboration with Beijing.
There are no initiatives related to this topic.
-
India's Promise? Conflicting prospects for the world's most populous democracy appeared in Harvard Magazine. In the article Kapur asks, The exceptional confluence of good news—economic, political, international, internal—might seem to indicate that India’s moment has finally arrived. Or has it? Is India’s future akin to an Asian European Union—a liberal, democratic, multinational polity (albeit with lower levels of income)? Or is Brazil the more likely model—a giant system that has become wealthier but remains extremely unequal, and is afflicted by high levels of endemic violence? Or could India go the bleak way of Indonesia—a sprawling but weak polity led by governments with ostensible power but little authority; one that, despite its size, is likely to continue to languish in the minor leagues?
-
Aid and trade are over-rated when it comes to helping reduce poverty, according to this provocative Foreign Affairs article by Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, and Arvind Subramanian. Neglected issues, such as giving poor nations more space for policy making, financing R&D for vaccines and other new technology, and easing restrictions on migrant labor, are potentially more important, they argue.
-
From the Financial Times
-
Iraq is rich in oil but surprisingly poor in human capital. Oil is a mixed blessing at best, a curse at worst. Among countries rich in oil are many that have failed at economic or political development or both: Angola, Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia. Human capital, on the other hand, is an unmitigated blessing. It’s been central to the economic transformation of resource-poor countries, including Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and now China, and in the larger sense of what development is fundamentally about, it’s an end in itself. Indeed, you might say that education and health, the most straightforward indicators of human capital at the individual level, are the point of development.
-
From Global Agenda Magazine
-
From the Financial Times Comment and Analysis
-
From the Financial Times
|
|
Print
Share
