Structural Change, Industrialization, and Convergence

Abstract

What I hope to do in my presentation is to give a perspective that draws on my research about the recent experience of economic growth in the developing world and emerging markets and what that suggests for the future of economic convergence. Convergence refers to the closing of the gap in living standards between the poor majority in the world and the rich minority. For hundreds of millions of people the last few decades have actually not been all that bad. These recent decades have been better than any they or their parents or previous generations had, not only in absolute terms but also in terms of relative performance compared to what was happening in the advanced parts of the world.

This is a lightly edited transcript of Dani Rodrik’s keynote presentation at the conference. The talk is largely based on the following two papers: “Globalization, Structural Change, and Economic Growth” (with Margaret McMillan). In Making Globalization Socially Sustainable, Marc Bacchetta and Marion Jansen (eds.). Geneva: International Labor Organization and World Trade Organization, 2011; and “Unconditional Convergence,” NBER Discussion Paper No. 17546, October 2011. The reader is referred to these papers for full references and data sources.