Overview

Development, underdevelopment and globalization have had a common history since the Great Discoveries led to colonization, trade, and with the Industrial Revolution, to unequal technological development. This book first summarizes the long term history of globalization. It then develops a theory of multiple steady states in technological change (technological poverty traps) to explain how the market economy can generate wide income differences between countries. Next, it shows how poverty traps in education and health can further widen inequality. It then shows that technology traps can exist in the context of trade, explaining the impact of the colonial diktat on the emergence of underdevelopment. Technology traps can also exist in the context of foreign direct investment, characterizing contemporary globalization. Finally, the industrial or mass market economy in general is shown to be characterized by a technology gradient akin to a poverty trap that generates inefficiency and inequality. Free market policies need to be complemented with distributive and innovative policies to improve economic performance and equality. The necessary tax funding can be provided at the national level compatibly with globalization under appropriate international agreements.

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9781975751746

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David Mayer-Foulkes, Mathematics PhD, has been Economics Research Professor at CIDE in Mexico City since 1991. He has also conducted research for PAHO, UNDP and the Mexican Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, amongst others. His research asks the question, how can poverty be compatible with the basic Welfare Theorems in Economics? He focuses this question in the context of economic development, and provides answers in a series of dynamic poverty trap models in human and economic development. These explain the main features of globalization including the coexistence of development and under development and the 2008 crisis. The same type of model shows that free markets are inherently unequal and inefficient in industrial economies with mass production. Innovative and distributive policies can improve both national and global welfare.

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