Globalization has, for better or worse, altered the economic arena of every country in the world. For many less developed countries, globalization has leveled the playing field so that their economies can compete with larger, more developed ones such as the United States and other large Western economies. For example, technical engineers in India and China are now as skilled as American engineers, but at half the cost. The once large and prosperous service sector in the United States, as well as telemarketing services, have largely been relocated to India as a large exodus of American multinationals finds cheaper workers offering comparable quality. This therefore seems to be the essence of globalization: companies will go wherever it is cheapest and most effective to do business, but without sacrificing the quality of the product, service or experience. It follows that developed nations would be at a significant disadvantage compared to developing nations because most activities, in terms of labor costs, are too expensive to perform in developed nations compared to developing ones . However, Dani Rodrick, a specialist in international political economy, contradictorily claims that globalization has brought little but good news to those with products, skills and resources in developing countries to market around the world. He points out that for most of the world's developing countries “the 1990s were a decade of frustration and disappointment. … Most former socialist economies ended the decade with lower per capita income levels than they began – and even in rare successes, such as Poland, poverty rates remained higher than under communism. East Asian economies like South Korea, Thailand... are at the center of the paper... in the world. China's currency markets were not unified until 1994. China has steadfastly refused to open its financial markets to foreigners, again until very recently. Most astonishingly, China achieved its transformation without adopting private property rights, let alone privatizing its state-owned enterprises” (Rodrick). China's central government and its leaders have been practical enough to understand the role that private incentives and market liberalization could play in producing results. However, “they were also intelligent enough to realize that the solution to their problems lay in institutional innovations suited to local conditions – the household responsibility system, township and village enterprises, special economic zones, the partial liberalization of agriculture and industry – rather than in standardized models and Western rules of good behavior” (Rodrick).