Globalisation, State Intervention and the Impact on Living Standards
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
The theme of globalisation is so fundamentally upon us. Malaysia has been part of the global economy, not just for decades, but for centuries in fact. But many countries around the world, for various reasons, have exempted themselves from world markets for much of the post-war era, and it is only in the last ten years that we have had, throughout the world, a true revolution of liberalisation of trade and finance so that now we can speak, for the first time in world history, of truly global markets for trade, production, technology and finance. And given this remarkable revolution, this is an extraordinarily important time for us to reflect on its meaning for economic strategy for countries such as Malaysia. This is also a timely theme because while Asia, more than any other region of the developing world, engaged in globalisation before it was called that, there have been questions raised about the possibility of continuing with the rapid growth of the region. These are important questions that have been well put, but poorly answered, by many. I will try to stress why I have tremendous optimism for the continued vigorous growth of this region, and why the region will have to adjust, and continue to adjust with dynamism and flexibility, to a very rapidly changing world situation.