Many of the world's population have gained from the globalization of product markets. At the same time the numbers living in absolute poverty have remained stubbornly large and inter- and intra-country income distribution has worsened as globalization has proceeded. Two outcomes to globalization are analysed - a positive-sum 'blue scenario' of full employment and effective redistributive mechanisms, and a 'red scenario' of a growing global reserve army of skilled workers, and the weakness of political processes favouring redistributive mechanisms. The conclusion is that the negative-sum red scenario is the most likely outcome of the unequalizing tendencies of globalization. The role which China plays in the creation of this global reserve army of labour - especially of skilled labour - is given particular attention.
This paper examines the performance of Export Processing Zones in the Dominican Republic. It shows that in specializing in unskilled labor-intensive export processing in the context of competitive devaluations between Central American countries, the Dominican Republic has experienced immiserizing employment growth. In these circumstances the export of labor-intensive manufactures is akin to that of primary commodities. Exporting countries which rely on unskilled labor and which fail to make the transition to higher value-added production exports are thus likely to experience declining terms of trade. The conclusions of this case study are considered to have wider relevance to World Bank and International Monetary Fund inspired structural adjustment programs in the Region.
We prove that groups acting geometrically on delta-quasiconvex spaces contain no essential Baumslag-Solitar quotients as subgroups. This implies that they are translation discrete, meaning that the translation numbers of their nontorsion elements are bounded away from zero.