LOBALIZATION impoverishes developing countries while undercutting middle-class living standards in the United States. The reduction of trade barriers encourages the exploitation of child labor, fosters a race to the bottom in environmental standards, tears women in third-world nations away from their families, homogenizes disparate indigenous cultures and strips the gears of democracy in favor of rapacious multinational corporations. It also causes cancer in puppies.

To be fair, no one makes the last claim. However, the rest of the paragraph represents the standard litany of charges levied against economic globalization. These accusations have inspired throngs of activists to make large puppets and protest in the streets of Seattle, Genoa, Cancun and other ports of call.

Economics professors disagree with almost all this, but the savvy ones recognize that they've been losing the rhetorical battle. Public opinion polls repeatedly show Americans to be wary about globalization. The problem is not that economists are starting to doubt their own arguments -- the problem is that the rest of society neither understands nor believes them. Between statistical evidence showing that trade is good for the economy and tangible anecdotes of sweatshops and job losses, most citizens trust the anecdotes.

There is a need for someone to step into the breach and defend globalization using the language of the average Joe, as opposed to the calculus of a Nobel Prize-winning Joe. If anyone can rise to this challenge, it should be Jagdish Bhagwati. An esteemed international economist, Bhagwati is a university professor at Columbia and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has advised the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. Born in India, educated in Britain and now an American citizen, he can claim to understand all points of view. He has won multiple prizes for excellence in economic writing. And when it comes to the merits of international trade and investment, Bhagwati's belief in the absolute rightness of his position rivals the most ardent of protesters: ''If reducing poverty by using economic analysis to accelerate growth and therewith pull people up into gainful employment and dignified sustenance is not a compelling moral imperative, what is?''

Two questions arise from a book like ''In Defense of Globalization.'' Will it serve as a useful tool for those defending the merits of globalization? Will it persuade some of the opponents that they are wrong? The answers are mostly yes and mostly no.

Bhagwati assembles persuasive evidence that reducing barriers to trade and investment generates social as well as economic benefits. Underlying all of these good outcomes is a simple two-step hypothesis: globalization increases economic growth in participating countries; growth reduces poverty and its concomitant social ills.

The meat of the book is the series of chapters devoted to proving this hypothesis. Globalization can take the credit for helping to reduce the gender gap in wages in the United States. Why? Competition from abroad forced American firms to shed their discriminatory practices of old in order to maximize economic efficiency. Vietnam's increased access to the global marketplace reduced the number of children working in rice paddies, because workers took the higher incomes from exports to send their children to schools. Trade barriers limiting the number of Japanese automobiles worsened America's environment, because companies like Toyota and Honda chose to export bigger cars with bigger profit margins; now more gas guzzlers and fewer fuel-economy models are on America's roads.

While the virtue of free markets becomes readily apparent as the book progresses, Bhagwati is more confusing about the government's role in a globalizing economy. For example, on Page 56, he recalls with approval the Indian government's decision to install agricultural price supports to prevent a collapse in food prices during the green revolution. Two pages later, policy makers are urged to ensure that ''bureaucrats are replaced by markets wherever possible.'' On the very next page, Bhagwati sees ''great virtue in quasi-paternalistic moves'' by the government when it comes to the poor. At no point does he spell out the precise role of the state.

Critics of globalization will find a few things to admire in Bhagwati's outlook. He limits his defense of globalization to trade, direct investment and migration. The book's short chapter on capital markets echoes many of the concerns of globalization's critics. Bhagwati forcefully denounces ''the Wall Street-Treasury Complex'' that cajoled developing countries into eliminating capital controls. His charming cosmopolitanism will also allay the fears of critics convinced that economists are incapable of appreciating non-economic values. Literary references flow from the pages, from Lady Murasaki to King Lear to Woody Allen.

Bhagwati says at the outset that he wants to engage the ''mainstream'' elements of the anti-globalization movement. However, he never really grapples with mainstream critics like Dani Rodrik, who argues that economic growth leads to economic openness and not vice versa. There are also missteps in tone that will alienate some. At one point, Bhagwati dismisses a section of the environmental movement as a bunch of ''old folks turning to protect turtles and ospreys.'' At another point, he argues that migrant women receive psychic benefits from working in a liberated environment and providing for their families back home. His evidence? The experiences of his maid.

The book's fatal flaw, however, is its off-kilter relationship with the business cycle. During boom times, antiglobalizers score political points by stoking fears of cultural debasement and environmental degradation. During leaner years, naked self-interest becomes the salient concern: in the current economic climate, American opponents of globalization talk less about its effect on the developing world and more about the offshore outsourcing of jobs. Bhagwati could undoubtedly rebut this argument, but unfortunately he devotes only a single page to it. Readers looking for answers to the jobs question should check out Douglas Irwin's engaging ''Free Trade Under Fire.'' But tuck away ''In Defense of Globalization'' -- it will serve as a useful guide for better times.