Globalization, Growth, and the Poor -1 - Globalization, Growth, and the Poor

Jeffrey Williamson (2002) points out that “the world has seen two globalization booms over the past two centuries and one bust. The first global century ended with World War I and the second started at the end of World War II, while the years in between were ones of anti-global backlash” (1). The percent of the world population living in extreme poverty ($1 a day, inflation adjusted), meanwhile, declined from 84 percent in 1820 (the beginning of the Williamson’s first global century) to 66 percent in 1910 (just three years before its end). The ongoing second global century, which began in 1950, saw this portion decline, from 55 percent in 1950 to 24 percent in 1992, and no doubt it is even lower in 2003. In the inter-war period of anti-globalization backlash, the proportion was probably stagnant on the average. Although poverty estimates based on a global poverty line for a time span of more than a century are obviously subject to wide margins of error, other non-income-based indicators, such as those of health, nutrition and literacy corroborate the broad picture.