Chapter 1: Globalization, Income Inequality, and Wealth Disparity: Issues and Evidence

The catch word “Globalization” has been defended by advocates for lifting people out of poverty and the inequality in the world. But it has been criticized by opponents for failing to solve the problem of poverty, inequality, and for increasingly creating wealth disparity. This raises the question. The fact is that the contemporary world exhibits very high levels of inequality of income and wealth both between countries and within countries. Wealth inequality is more pronounced than that of income inequality across the globe and within-countries. Evidence suggests that rising inequality and wealth disparity arising out of globalization drive is choking off the potential benefits to the poor. In this backdrop, a composite assessment has been made in the present chapter to answer the question “whether globalization with its particular ideology, the market fundamentalism has benefited many and whether the performance on the distributional front has really been impressive.” From facts and evidence, the study finds that inequalities in income and wealth, also in wages have widened in many developed, developing developed, and developing countries. Technological change and globalization are their main sources.