If they grow in size and intensity, the protests may alter the path of international economic and financial integration. The protesters believe that economic globalization hurts the poor. If that is true, they have good reason to protest. These questions are important to a discussion of how globalization proceeds, but they miss activists central accusation. From the perspective of the SAIS International Economics Department, however, I don't so easily reach a careful analytic conclusion.
Several difficulties arise.
First, we must decide how to measure welfare. Second, we should compare the incomes of the poor against what those incomes hypothetically would be if their nations were fully self-sufficient. As an ideal, we would measure the observed incomes of the poor, or the number of people below some poverty line, and see if poverty is worse than it would be had their countries not liberalized their international flows of goods, capital and information. If poverty is no worse given existing policies, globalization has done no harm. Importantly, we are not comparing the economic globalization we see with some idealized global growth with optimum equity.