Looking beyond averages in the trade and poverty debate

Martin Ravallion ()

No 3461, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: There has been much debate about how much poor people in developing countries gain from trade openness, as one aspect of"globalization."The author views the issue through both"macro"and"micro"empirical lenses. The macro lens uses cross-country comparisons and aggregate time series data. The micro lens uses household-level data combined with structural modeling of the impacts of specific tradereforms. The author presents case studies for China and Morocco. Both the macro and micro approaches cast doubt on some wide generalizations from both sides of the globalization debate. Additionally the micro lens indicates considerable heterogeneity in the welfare impacts of trade openness, with both gainers and losers among the poor. The author identifies a number of covariates of the individual gains. The results point to the importance of combining trade reforms with well-designed social protection policies.

Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Environmental Economics&Policies; Services&Transfers to Poor; Poverty Monitoring&Analysis; Public Health Promotion; Environmental Economics&Policies; Achieving Shared Growth; Poverty Assessment; TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT; Economic Theory&Research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-ltv
Date: 2004-11-01
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Related works:
Working Paper: Looking Beyond Averages in the Trade and Poverty Debate (2005)
Journal Article: Looking beyond averages in the trade and poverty debate (2006)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3461

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