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Catch-up and Constraints in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

Modern business technology appears to have become far more widely available than in the post-war decades; producers in many developing countries have entered into global or regional value chains as subordinate producers; and developing countries as a bloc have become far more integrated into the world economy than before. ‘Globalization’ theory, derived from neoclassical economics, presumes—with some qualifications—that these trends will yield a more equal world. Yet ‘catch-up’, in the sense of developing countries coming close to or entering the ranks of developed countries, is notable more for its absence in the seven decades since the Second World War than for its presence as a pattern in the world economy. This chapter tackles the question of why.