International institutions, globalization and the inequality among nations

Abstract

In the 1950s, Gunnar Myrdal pointed out that while inequality between regions within many economically advanced countries was falling due to the policies of national government, inequality between countries was growing, given the absence of anything resembling a world government. Since then, international institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have grown in size and scope. This paper uses econometric techniques to argue that these institutions, by liberalizing and increasing international trade and capital flows, have not had the effect of reducing inequality across nations and may, in fact, have exacerbated it.