Globalization and patterns of economic development

One of the most important challenges facing economics is to understand why globalization spurs economic growth to a greater extent in some parts of th e world than in others. While part of the answer rests with differences in national economic policies, such policy differences are only part of the st ory. Differences in physical geography and resource endowments also cause c ountries to experience very different patterns of economic development in t he global economy. In this article, five different patterns of economic dev elopment are described, and it is illustrated how they are related to the u nderlying geography, economic policies, and resource endowments of a countr y. JEL no. F02, O11, O57, P51.