Judging from the ever-more accurate measurements of global disparities that flow from the world's leading humanitarian organizations - with the World Bank, IMF, WTO and OECD taking the lead - it would be no exaggeration to state that scholarly interest in this subject has now turned into a nearly unstoppable epidemic.

We need a different approach to the measurement of global disparities. The disparities between the rich and poor people are now so large, one has to ask if these comparisons make sense any more. When 25 million of the richest people living in the United States enjoy nearly as much income as 2 billion of the world's poorest people, one begins to wonder if the 'people' in the two groups are the same. It is likely that if knowledge of these comparisons became common, they could lead to the revival of old racist attitudes in the United States. Alternatively, they could induce feelings of deep despair among the world's 2 billion poorest people. And this could turn them into recruits for al-Qaida.

This is why I am proposing an alternative measure of global disparities. Instead of comparing X across people in poor and rich countries, I am suggesting that we make these comparisons for people in poor countries and mammalian pets in rich countries. In other words, economists at the World Bank, IMF, WTO and OECD should devote some of their resources to tracking how the economies of poor countries - especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia - are faring relative to the economies of pets in the rich countries.

We begin this exercise by first establishing some basic facts about the pet economy in the United States. Lest this be taken as an indication of my latent partiality for this great capitalist democracy, I have to protest that I would just as willingly have used the European Union for making my comparisons. Unfortunately, there does not yet exist a European counterpart to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), which might have provided some of the basic data on which I base my analysis of the pet economy in the United States.

First, let us establish the size of the mammalian pet economy in the United States; we define mammals to include dogs and cats. According to the APPMA, the total US pet industry expenditures for 2003 were $32.4 billion. I assume that 90 percent of this total was allocated to the canine and feline portion of the pet economy; this gives a total expenditure on this segment of the pet economy of $29.2 billion. Although impressive, these numbers seriously underestimate the true size of America's pet economy.

To the figures provided by APPMA must be added the value of the time that dog and cat owners dedicate to the care of their pets. Caring for pets can be a daily activity. Naturally, the pets have to be fed daily; they have to be groomed; they have to be taken out for walks; they have to be taken to the vets for shots, worming, injuries and illnesses. And let us not forget that many pet owners, following the advice of holistic veterinarians, avoid ready-to-eat foods for their pets. Instead they prepare home-cooked meals for their dogs and cats. In order to guide them in preparing healthy pet foods, the National Academies published in 2003 a revised edition of Nutrient Requirements of Cats and Dogs, a 500-page report prepared by an international team of experts, providing a most comprehensive assessment of the daily nutrient and calorie requirements for dogs and cats.

How does the US pet economy compare with the world's poor economies on a per capita basis? In 2003, the 142.7 million dogs and cats in the United States enjoyed a per capita consumption of $2523. The per capita income of world's 2.3 billion people in low income countries (LICs) was $2190 in 2003 international dollars. This means that the average mammalian pet in the US had a considerably higher standard of living than the average man, woman and child living in the LICs. 

The American dogs and cats enjoyed a much larger advantage in their living standards over many individual LICs. The advantage over Sierra Leoneans was 4.8 to one; 4.1 over Tanzanians; 2.8 over Nigerians; 1.3 over Bangladeshis; and 1.2 over Pakistanis. The average Indian had a small advantage of 1.1 over American dogs and cats. The Chinese had a larger lead of 2.0. It is heartening to note that these disparities are considerably smaller than the yawning gaps that emerge when we compare people in the rich countries against people in the poor countries. 

Does this mean that if the poor people could be used as pets by the rich, this would greatly improve their chances of deriving stronger gains from globalization? If this is indeed true, we can confidently expect that the US delegate to the World Trading Organization will soon propose appropriate changes in the global trading regime to allow for the large-scale adoption of children from poor countries as pets by people in the rich countries. I have no doubt that this proposal will command unanimous support from all the civilized peoples of the world - who, thankfully, inhabit the rich countries.

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. His political essays are now available in a book, Is There An Islamic Problem (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2004). He may be reached at [email protected]. Visit his webpage at: http://msalam.net.

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