Globalization and rural poverty

In this paper, we provide an analytical account of the mechanisms through which globalization, in the sense of increased foreign trade and long-term capital flows, affects the lives of the rural poor in developing countries (in their capacity as workers, consumers, recipients of public services, or users of common property resources). Globalization can not only cause many hardships for the rural poor, but it can also open up some opportunities which some countries can utilize and others do not, largely depending on their domestic political and economic institutions, and the net outcome is often quite complex and almost always context dependent, belying the glib pronouncements for or against globalization made in the opposing camps. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.