21 - Young Scientists Summer Program Lecture - 16 July 2008

Ha-Joon Chang

Globalization and Equity: Kicking Away the Ladder

Listen [MP3 49:21]

Lecture Summary

Over the past two and half decades, most developing countries have experienced slowdown in growth, rising inequality, and increased economic instability. The outcome, Ha-Joon Chang contends, is largely due to the policies imposed upon them by the rich countries and the international organizations that they control: free trade, free international investment, privatization, stronger protection of intellectual property rights, and conservative macroeconomic policies.

Dr. Chang argues that there are good theoretical reasons that those policies produce such outcome. He backs this contention by showing that neo-liberal policies promoted by the rich "Bad Samaritan" countries are actually not the same policies that they themselves used when they were still developing countries. They are also not the policies used by more recent development success stories, from Korea and Taiwan of the 1960s to China and India since the 1980s. Featuring Alexander Hamilton, the Lexus, the Nokia mobile phone, his son, and Orson Welles, Chang argues for a fundamental reform of the international economic system and for national policies focused on raising long-term productivity (mostly) in manufacturing.

The lecture is based on two books by Ho-Joon Chang: Kicking Away the Ladder and Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies & the Threat to the Developing World.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Ha-Joon Chang is one of the world's foremost heterodox economists

He received his M.Phil. (1987) and Ph.D. (1992) from the Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge, where has taught since 1990.

In addition to numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, he has published several authored and edited books. His most recent books include Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies & the Threat to the Developing World (2007); Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002), which won the 2003 Myrdal Prize for best monograph; Restructuring Korea Inc. (with Jang-Sup Shin, 2003); Globalization, Economic Development and The Role of the State (2003); and Reclaiming Development: An Alternative Economic Policy Manual (with Ilene Grabel, 2004). His writings have been translated into 13 languages.

Ha-Joon Chang has worked as a consultant for many international organizations, including various UN agencies such as UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and a number of governments on development policies. He was awarded the 2005 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

Full Curriculum Vitae

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Last updated: 03 Apr 2009