The Hard Road to Autocentric Development in a Globalized World: A New Measurement Proposal

Abstract

Globalization has allowed the expansion of technical progress from the core to the periphery, mainly through the export of technological inputs and the direct investment process, which has led to noticeable productivity gains and higher economic growth rates in many developing countries. However, these countries’ capacity to retain such productivity gains and distribute them to the rest of the economy has been limited by their ability to generate sectoral linkages and strengthen their domestic market. Based on Amin’s concept of <em>articulation</em>, this article aims to identify different patterns of accumulation among a sample of 88 countries. An Autocentric Development Index (ADI) is constructed to classify the sample countries into four groups, according to their level of autocentric development (high, high-middle, low-middle, and low) and to evaluate their capacity to transform economic dynamism into higher levels of socioeconomic development. The results of the analysis confirm the difficulties semi-peripheral countries have to converge with core countries, thereby consolidating the hegemonic position of the latter within the world system.