Tables of national competitiveness give an easily comparable ranking of the winners and losers of global economic competition. But they don't explain why the “poor” countries are four times less productive than the “rich” ones or why some rich countries are twice as productive as others....

This book is based on an exceptional event in December 2000 which brought together civil society from the poor countries and OECD experts. It emerges that globalisation can have a positive impact in poor countries, but only if policies encouraging a more equitable distribution of human and...