انتقال به اقتصاد جهانی: فقر، سرمایه انسانی و بخش غیر رسمی در یک مدل CGE ساختارگرا

Recent econometric evidence suggests that trade liberalization has an elusive relationship to growth and income distribution. This paper provides an explanation for these results via numerical simulations of a dynamic structuralist CGE. The conclusion is that if families become too poor to finance human capital accumulation, or the state too stingy to supply it at a reasonable cost, exports of skill-intensive goods can become uncompetitive and the transition to openness may involve increasing poverty, unemployment and stagnation. The model design incorporates an informal sector as well as accumulation of human capital. The paper simulates two trajectories, a “green” path in which per capita income grows steadily with a rapid rate of human capital accumulation and a reduction in the level of economic informality. A second, or “red” path is also possible, however, with a growth rate that is much lower, an expanding informal sector and an inadequate rate of human capital formation.

The standard Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson model suggests that countries with large reservoirs of surplus labor should produce and export goods intensive in their most abundant factor, unskilled labor. But recent econometric evidence suggests that pro-globalization trade policy has a tenuous relationship to growth and income distribution (Easterly, 2001, Spilimbergo et al., 1999 and Edwards, 1997). One explanation is that liberalization of the capital and current account was not accompanied by a broad set of policies addressing a number of development issues simultaneously (Rodrik, 1999). Brasili et al. (2000) and Roland-Holst (2003) show that successful globalizers move up a ladder of comparative advantage, with rapid shifts in their trade patterns, as both human and physical capital accumulate. In contrast, policymakers who see openness as an end in itself may be disappointed in the return to their efforts to respect the constraints imposed by the world financial and trading community. Indeed how these constraints are perceived by policymakers is the central issue addressed here. The model is a dynamic structuralist computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with an informal sector. It is used to evaluate the longer term consequences for growth distribution, human capital formation and poverty of two stylized 20-year trajectories for a hypothetical small, open lower middle-income developing country with segmented labor markets. In the first, the policy requirements imposed by globalization are perceived to be strict: the nominal exchange rate appreciates to contain inflation, interest rates are kept high to maintain foreign exchange reserves and attract foreign direct investment and fiscal discipline is maintained via a tight constraint on government spending, with public sector investment adjusting to maintain the target PSBR to GDP ratio. In the second trajectory, trade reform is combined with a slightly more expansionary macro policy: the nominal exchange and interest rates are managed and government investment is aimed at lowering educational costs. Simulations show how relatively small differences in the macro policy component can cumulatively cause large differences in overall economic performance in the medium run. The results are also consistent with a J-curve effect of trade liberalization on growth found by Greenaway et al. (2002). The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is devoted to a theoretical elaboration of the adjustment mechanisms of the model. The third section presents empirical results of the effects of globalization on two stylized trajectories, with sensitivity analysis on some key parameters. A fourth section offers some conclusions on what can be learned from the simulations. A complete listing of the equations of the model together with the social accounting matrix (SAM) is presented in Appendix A.

The CGE model of this paper provides some support for the hypothesis that a vicious cycle of stagnation and poverty can arise in the transition to a more globalized economy. We draw the following conclusions: • If policymakers have a narrow conception of what makes the economy attractive to foreign investors, the transition to a more open economy may falter. • Reducing government investment to bring government accounts into balance may increase the private cost of education and cause the rate of human capital formation to slow. • Policies that abandon support for the poor run the risk of creating a bottleneck in the market for skilled labor and a consequent loss of competitiveness in the export market. • Inequality is likely to increase even in a successful transition if it is based on a low unit labor cost competitive strategy. • Headcount poverty in a properly managed transition is likely to be less severe. The poverty gap can become significant, especially when per capita income in the informal sector declines due to influx of labor there. • In a successful transition to openness, there is no need for massive rural–urban migration; in less successful transitions, real-wage differentials may well attract significant migration, despite a lower probability of finding a job. • If the red trajectory was more successful in attracting foreign investment it could more closely resemble the green as foreign investment replaces wage-driven export growth. The simulations of this paper are designed to emphasize the risks if policies designed to lure foreign capital are not entirely successful. • Sensitivity analysis shows that no one parameter is responsible for the overall character of the model. This conclusion is not surprising, given the large number of parameters in any CGE model, but it is nonetheless of some comfort to be able to show that the basic results of the simulations above do not hinge on any one setting. On the other hand, changing the parameters that describe the differences in policy stances, exchange rate policy, and fiscal expenditure that changes the private cost of education, do have an important impact on the evolution of the model.