ABSTRACT
The idea that globalization promotes international income convergence through trade and investment opportunities and technology transfer, and therefore helps latecomer countries in their effort to catch up with early achievers, has long been advanced by a number of of¼cials and scholars. It is also an idea that has been challenged by countless arguments and examples. The controversy over latecomers’ advantage under globalization did not originate from the Washington Consensus, a policy proposition championed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which argued that economic liberal iz ation, privatization, and opening up are good for all countries. Nor was it invented by the scathing critiques of the Washington Consensus by such proponents as Chang (2002), Stiglitz (2002, 2006), Rodrik (2007), and Cimoli et al. (2009a). Con½ict of interests over globalization between early achievers and latecomers is an old issue that goes back at least to the nineteenth century.
