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The political economy of development
This academic site promotes excellence in teaching and researching economics and development, and the advancing of describing, understanding, explaining and theorizing.
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Castellano -- Français Search: Development Economics Editor: Dr. Róbinson Rojas
The Developmental StateThe state, civil society and development The neoliberal state Sustainable development
On Development Economics
The Future of Development Economics
The New Economy in Development
The Need to Rethink Development Economics
Development Economics
Economic Literacy
Basic knowledge on economics
E. W. Nafziger - 2005
From Seers to Sen: the meaning of economic development
How has the meaning of economic development changed during the twenty years of WIDER’s existence? Two markers are Dudley Seers, “The Meaning of Development” (1967, 1979), for the earlier period and Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999), for the later. Here the meaning of development also encompasses measures and strategies of development and approaches to its study. Moreover, I examine works beyond these markers to provide more detail of the two men’s views.
Both men were critical of the development literature of their times. For Seers, neoclassical economics had a flawed paradigm and dependency theory a lack of policy realism. After the fall of state socialism in 1989-1991, the ideological struggles among economists diminished. Neoclassicism’s Washington Consensus of the World Bank, IMF, and the U.S. government reigned (Williamson 1993, pp. 1329-1336; 1994, pp. 26- 28). Sen did not focus on ideological issues but, according to the Nobel prize committee, “restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems” such as development.
E. Thorbecke - 2005
The evolution of the development doctrine 1950-2005
The selection and adoption of a development strategy - i.e. a set of more or less interrelated and consistent policies - depend upon three building blocks:
(1) the prevailing development objectives which, in turn, are derived from the prevailing view and definition of the development process;
(2) the conceptual state of the art regarding the existing body of development theories, hypotheses, models, techniques, and empirical applications; and
(3) the underlying data system available to diagnose the existing situation, measure performance, and test hypotheses.
United Nations University
WIDER Jubilee Conference - Helsinki, Finland
17-18 June 2005
The Future of Development Economics
Papers on:
- Institutions and Governance
- Conflict and Human Rights
- Development Finance
- Development Economics in Retrospect
- Poverty and Vulnerability
- Foreign Aid
- Development Strategies
- China
- Globalization
- A New World Economic Order
- Behavioural Approaches
- Poverty
- Wellbeing and Human Development
- Trade and Development
- Migration and Employment
- Africa
- International Finance
- Pro-poor Policies
- Technology and Development
- Informal Sector
- Rural Development
- Achieving the MDGs
- Growth
- Country Strategies
- Cultural and Social Capital

RP2006/14 Lance Taylor:
Development Questions for 25 Years
Recent growth experience in developing countries is reviewed, with an emphasis on structural change and sources of effective demand. How policy influences such outcomes is analyzed in light of historical experience. Options are discussed for macro and industrial/commercial policy, and how they may influence the growth process. The recent ‘institutional turn’ in development theory may obfuscate serious policy analysis.

RP2006/13 Álvaro García Hurtado:
Development in Chile 1990-2005: Lessons from a Positive Experience
(PDF 137KB)

RP2006/12 Guillermo Rozenwurcel:
Why Have All Development Strategies Failed in Latin America?
(PDF 198KB)

RP2006/74 Jonathan Di John:
The Political Economy of Taxation and Tax Reform in Developing Countries
(PDF 127KB)

RP2006/73 Julius Kiiza:
Institutions and Economic Performance in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Mauritius, Botswana and Uganda
(PDF 115KB)

RP2006/71 William Lazonick:

Corporate Governance, Innovative Enterprise, and Economic Development

(PDF 320KB)

RP2006/55 Nanak Kakwani and Hyun H. Son:
Evaluating Targeting Efficiency of Government Programmes: International Comparisons
(PDF 122KB)

RP2006/54 Gerald Epstein:
Central Banks as Agents of Economic Development
(PDF 135KB)

RP2006/49 Sukti Dasgupta and Ajit Singh:
Manufacturing, Services and Premature Deindustrialization in Developing Countries: A Kaldorian Analysis
(PDF 105KB)

RP2006/47 François Bourguignon and Mark Sundberg:
Absorptive Capacity and Achieving the MDGs
(PDF758KB)

RP2006/36 Frances Stewart:
Do We Need a New ‘Great Transformation’? Is One Likely?
(PDF 171KB)
Karl Polanyi wrote The Great Transformation in 1944 which analysed the double movement Europe experienced, from a situation where the market was heavily regulated and controlled in the eighteenth century to a virtually unregulated market in the nineteenth century, and the huge transformation in which the market was once more brought under control as a reaction to the poverty, unemployment and insecurity brought about by the unregulated market. Yet in both developed and developing countries there has since been a reaction with a new move towards the market. This paper analyses such processes in contemporary developing countries, and considers whether, in the light of the consequences of the unregulated market, a new Great Transformation is needed. It also considers whether such a transformation is likely, reviewing moves towards increased regulation of the market, and also the challenges faced by any contemporary great transformation arising from globalization and the nature of politics.

RP2006/27 Lakhwinder Singh:
Innovations, High-Tech Trade and Industrial Development: Theory, Evidence and Policy
(PDF 107KB)

RP2006/26 Pertti Haaparanta and Heli Virta:
Decomposing Growth: Do Low-Income and HIPCs Differ from High-Income Countries? Growth, Technological Catch-up, Technological Change and Human and Physical Capital Deepening
(PDF 447KB)

RP2006/25 Stephen Knowles:
Is Social Capital Part of the Institutions Continuum and is it a Deep Determinant of Development?
(PDF 142KB)

RP2006/24 C. Leigh Anderson and Kostas Stamoulis:
Applying Behavioural Economics to International Development Policy
(PDF 123KB)

RP2006/21 Grzegorz W. Kolodko:
Institutions, Policies and Economic Development
(PDF 161KB)

RP2006/20 E. Wayne Nafziger:
From Seers to Sen: The Meaning of Economic Development
(PDF 90KB)

DP2004/08 James B. Davies:
Microsimulation, CGE and Macro Modelling for Transition and Developing Economies
(PDF 254KB)

B. Cimbleris (1980s)
Economy and Thermodynamics

Andre Gunder Frank (1995)
The Underdevelopment of Development
"I intend to undertake a political sociology of knowledge of the study of development based on my own experience and perspective. I review the three varieties of development economics; neo-classical (right), Keynesian (center) and Marxist (left) and autobiographically my own participation in all of them. Perhaps I can also clarify how on further reflection my choice for the study of development is now none of the above. I would not wish to find myself in any of these camps when H.W. Arndt (1987: 162-3) can write:..."
University of Conneticut
Department of Economics
EDIRC
Economic Departaments, Institutes and Research Centers in The World
World Bank :
Global Economic Prospects 2004
Realizing the Development Promise of the Doha Agenda
United Nations University
World Institute for Development Economics Research

PB No. 9 Sustainability of External Development Financing
to Developing Countries (PDF 504KB)
Matthew Odedokun, March 2004
ISBN 92-9190-577-1

PB No. 8 Poverty, International Migration and Asylum (PDF 419KB)
Christina Boswell and Jeff Crisp, February 2004
ISBN 92-9190-575-5

PB No. 7 e-development? Development and the New Economy (PDF 453KB)
Matthew Clarke, December 2003
ISBN 92-9190-573-9

PB No. 6 Africa's Recovery from Conflict: Making Peace Work for the Poor (PDF 376KB) Powerpoint presentation of this PB (3KB)
Tony Addison, March 2003
ISBN 92-92-9190-399-X

Sínteses Sobre Política 6
A Recuperação de África após os Conflitos: Levar aos Pobres os Benefícios da Paz (PDF 717KB)
Tony Addison, Junho de 2003 (Translation in Portuguese of Policy Brief 6)

Cahiers de politique 6
L’Afrique de la guerre à la paix : garantir l’avenir des populations pauvres (PDF 736KB)
Tony Addison, juin 2003 (Translation in French of Policy Brief 6)

PB No. 5 Governing Globalization: Issues and Institutions(PDF 376KB)
Deepak Nayyar and Julius Court, June 2002
ISBN 92-9190-227-8
Executive Summary (Japanese translation PDF 146KB)

PB No. 4 Inequality, Growth and Poverty in the Era of Liberalization and Globalization (PDF 426KB)
Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Julius Court, November 2001
ISBN 92-9190-013-3

Executive Summary (Japanese translation PDF 172KB)

PB No. 3 Access to Land and Land Policy Reforms
(PDF 1630KB)
by Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet, April 2001
ISBN 952-455-125-X

PB No. 2 Social and Economic Policies to Prevent Complex Humanitarian Emergencies Lessons from Experience
(PDF 455KB)
by Jeni Klugman, 1999
ISBN 952-9520-70-4

PB No. 1 Forests in Global Warming
(PDF 757KB)
by Patrick Humphreys and Matti Palo, 1998
ISBN 952-9520-69-7
World Institute for Development Economics Research
Discussion Papers:

DP2002/127 Machiko Nissanke: Donors' Support for Microcredit as Social Enterprise: A Critial Reappraisal (PDF 255KB)

DP2002/126 Bernard Hoekman: Developing Countries and the Political Economy of the Trading System (PDF 259KB)

DP2002/125 Gautam Hazarika and Rafael Otero: Foreign Trade and the Gender Earnings Differential in Urban Mexico (PDF187KB)

DP2002/124 Janine Aron: Building Institutions in Post-Conflict African Economies (PDF 207KB)

DP2002/123 Jean-Claude Berthélemy and Ariane Tichit: Bilateral Donors' Aid Allocation Decisions: A Three-dimentional Panel Analysis (PDF 323KB)

DP2002/122 A. V. Y. Mbelle: HICP Relief: Too Little, Too Late? Perspectives from a New Qualifier, Tanzania (PDF 175KB)

DP2002/121 Cecilia Ugaz: Consumer Participation and Pro-Poor Regulation in Latin America (PDF 180KB)

DP2002/120 Tony Addison and S. Mansoon Murshed: Transnational Terrorism as a Spillover of Domestic Disputes in Other Countries (PDF 199KB)

DP2002/119 Sylvanus I. Ikhide: Institutional Reforms and the Role of Multilateral Aid Agencies (PDF 256KB)

DP2002/118 George Mavrotas: Multilateral Development Banks and Private Sector Financing: The Case of IFC (PDF 201KB)

DP2002/117 Ayodele Jimoh: Bilateral Official Finance for Private Sector Development and the Role of Non-Government Organizations (PDF 295KB)

DP2002/116 Derrick L. Cogburn: Emergent Global Information Infrastructure/Global Information Society (PDF 198KB)

DP2002/115 Sougata Poddar: Network Externality and Software Piracy (PDF 182KB)

DP2002/114 Jennifer Mbabazi: A CGE Analysis of the Short-run Welfare Effects of Tariff Liberalisation in Uganda (PDF 216KB)

DP2002/113 Jomo K. S. and Wee Chong Hui: The Political Economy of Malaysian Federalism: Economic Development, Public Policy and Conflict Containment (PDF 343KB)

DP2002/112 Peter Gibbon and Lau Schulpen: Comparative Appraisal of Multilateral and Bilateral Approaches to Financing Private Sector Development in Developing Countries (PDF 366KB)

DP2002/111 Jai-Joon Hur, Hwan-Joo Seo and Young Soo Lee: ICT Diffusion and Skill Upgrading in Korean Industries (PDF 192KB)

DP2002/110 P. B. Anand: Financing the Provision of Global Public Goods (PDF 340KB)

DP2002/109 Jonathan P. Thomas: Bankruptcy Proceedings for Sovereign State Insolvency (PDF 182KB)

DP2002/108 Kandamuthan Subodh: Market Concentration, Firm Size and Innovative Activity: A Firm-level Economic Analysis of Selected Indian Industries under Economic Liberalization (PDF 242KB)

DP2002/107 S. Mansoob Murshed: Strategic Interaction and Donor Policy Determination in a Domestic Setting (PDF 202KB)

DP2002/106 Howard White: Long-run Trends and Recent Developments in Official Assistance from Donor Countries (PDF 240KB)

DP2002/105 Oliver Morrissey: Recipient Governments' Willingness and Ability to Meet Aid Conditionality: The Effectiveness of Aid Finance and Conditions (PDF 218KB)

DP2002/104 Guang Hua Wan: Income Inequality and Growth in Transition Economies: Are Nonlinear Models Needed? (PDF 212KB)

DP2002/103 Ilham Haouas, Mahmoud Yagoubi and Almas Heshmati: Labour-Use Efficiency in Tunisian Manufacturing Industries: A Flexible Adjustment Model (PDF 238KB)

DP2002/102 Ilham Haouas, Mahmoud Yagoubi and Almas Heshmati: The Impacts of Trade Liberalization on Employment and Wages in Tunisian Industries (PDF 280KB)

DP2002/101 Guang Hua Wan: Regression-based Inequality Decomposition: Pitfalls and a Solution Procedure (PDF 160KB)

DP2002/100 Fadle M. Naqib: Economic Aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: The Collapse of the Oslo Accord (PDF 108KB)

DP2002/99 Niels Hermes, Robert Lensink, and Victor Murinde: Flight Capital and its Reversal for Development Financing (PDF 223KB)

DP2002/98 Raghbendra Jha: Innovative Sources of Development Finance: Global Cooperation in the Twenty-first Century (PDF 238KB)

DP2002/97 Léonce Ndikumana: Additionality of Debt Relief and Debt Forgiveness, and Implications for Future Volumes of Official Assistance (PDF 229KB)

DP2002/96 Eric Neumayer: Arab-Related Bilateral and Multilateral Sources of Development Finance: Issues, Trends, and the Way Forward (PDF 197KB)

DP2002/95 Patrice Muller: Internet Use in Transition Economies: Economic and Institutional Determinants (PDF 212KB)

DP2002/94 Stijn Claessens, Daniela Kingebiel, and Sergio L. Schmukler: Explaining the Migration of Stocks from Exchanges in Emerging Economies to International Centres (PDF 158KB)

DP2002/93 Randall Dodd: Derivatives, the Shape of International Capital Flows and the Virtues of Prudential Regulation (PDF 102KB)

DP2002/92 Daniel Chudnovsky and Andrés López: The Software and Information Services Sector in Argentina: Pros and Cons of an Inward-Orientated Development Strategy (PDF 219KB)

DP2002/91 Mina. N. Baliamoune: Assessing the Impact of One Aspect of Globalization on Economic Growth in Africa (PDF 116KB)

DP2002/90 Danny Cassimon and Peter-Jan Engelen: Legal and Institutional Barriers to Optimal Financial Architecture for New Economy Firms in Developing Countries (PDF 131KB)

DP2002/89 Christopher Forman: The Corporate Digital Divide: Determinants of Internet Adoption (PDF 144KB)

DP2002/88 Youngsoo Lee, Jeonghun Oh, and Hwanjoo Seo: Digital Divideand Growth Gap: A Cumulative Relationship (PDF 194KB)

DP2002/87 Sumit Joshi and Stephen C. Smith: An Endogenous Group Formation Theory of Co-operative Networks: The Economics of La Lega and Mondragón (PDF 378KB)

DP2002/86 Ethan Ligon and Laura Schechter: Measuring Vulnerability: The Director's Cut (PDF 223KB)

DP2002/85 Stefan Dercon and Pramila Krishnan: Risk Sharing and Public Transfers (PDF 246KB)

DP2002/84 Albertus Aochamub, Daniel Motinga, and Christoph Stork: Economic Development Potential through IP Telephony for Namibia (PDF 733KB)

DP2002/83 Samia Satti O. M. Nour: ICT Opportunities and Challenges for Development in the Arab World (PDF 167KB)

DP2002/82 José Antonio Ocampo: Capital-Account and Counter-Cyclical Prudential Regulations in Developing Countries (PDF 381KB)

DP2002/81 Ricardo Ffrench-Davis: Financial Crises and National Policy Issues: An Overview (PDF 410KB)

DP2002/80 Valpy FitzGerald: The Instability of the Emerging Market Assets Demand Schedule (PDF 166KB)

DP2002/79 Sagren Moodley: Competing in the Digital Economy?: The Dynamics and Impacts of B2B E-commerce on the South African Manufacturing Sector (PDF 321KB)

DP2002/78 K. J. Joseph: Growth of ICT and ICT for Development: Realities of the Myths of the Indian Experience (PDF 409KB)

DP2002/77 Mina N. Baliamoune: The New Economy and Developing Countries: Assessing the Role of ICT Diffusion (PDF 292KB)
A revised version of this paper was published in Information Technology for Development, Vol. 10, no. 3 (2003): 151-169.

DP2002/76 T. A. Bhavani: Impact of Technology on the Competitiveness of the Indian Small Manufacturing Sector: A Case Study of the Automotive Component Industry (PDF 398KB)

DP2002/75 Charles Kenny: The Internet and Economic Growth in Least Developed Countries (PDF 250KB)

DP2002/74 George R. G. Clarke: Does Internet Connectivity Affect Export Performance? Evidence from Transition Economies (PDF 85KB)

DP2002/73 Sandeep Kapur: Developing Countries in the New Economy: The Role of Demand-side Initiatives (PDF 178KB)

DP2002/72 Steve Onyeiwu: Inter-Country Variations in Digital Technology in Africa: Evidence, Determinants, and Policy Applications (PDF 296KB)

DP2002/71 Shaun Hargreaves Heap and Ashok Parikh: The Market Place for Ideas: An Analysis of Knowledge Diffusion in Academic Journals (PDF 140KB)

DP2002/70 Francesco Daveri: The New Economy in Europe, 1992-2001 (PDF 107KB)

DP2002/69 Poh-Kam Wong and Zi-Lin He: The Impacts of Knowledge Interaction with Manufacturing Clients on KIBS Firms Innovation Behaviour (PDF 240KB)

DP2002/68 K. Lal: E-business and Export Behaviour: Evidence from Indian Firms (PDF 83KB)

DP2002/67 Matti Pohjola: New Economy in Growth and Development (PDF 303KB)

DP2002/66 Nancy N. Nafula: Achieving Sustainable Universal Primary Education through Debt Relief: The Case of Kenya (PDF 255KB)

DP2002/65 Paul Kieti Kimalu: Debt Relief and Health Care in Kenya (PDF 93KB)

DP2002/64 Gianni Vaggi: Trade and Sustainable Finance for Development (PDF 344KB)

DP2002/63 Ashok Parikh: Impact of Liberalization, Economic Growth and Trade Policies on Current Accounts of Developing Countries: An Econometric Study (PDF 158KB)

DP2002/62 Marcin Piatkowski: The 'New Economy' and Economic Growth in Transition Economies (PDF 302KB)

DP2002/61 David Lubin: Bank Lending to Emerging Markets: Crossing the Border (PDF 145KB)

DP2002/60 Inna Verbina and Abdur Chowdhury: What Determines Public Education Expenditures in a Transition Economy? (PDF 189KB)

DP2002/59 Mohammed Omran: Testing for a Significant Change in the Egyptian Economy under the Economic Reform Programme Era (PDF 279KB)

DP2002/58 Gisele Kamanou and Jonathan Morduch: Measuring Vulnerability to Poverty (PDF 285KB)

DP2002/57 Joachim De Weerdt: Risk-Sharing and Endogenous Network Formation (PDF 303KB)

DP2002/56 Loïc Sadoulet: Incorporating Insurance Provisions in Microfinance Contracts: Learning from Visa®? (PDF 579KB)

DP2002/55 Jonathan Morduch: Consumption Smoothing Across Space: Testing Theories of Risk-Sharing in the ICRISAT Study Region of South India (PDF 427KB)

DP2002/54 Jane Kiringai: Debt and PRSP Conditionality (PDF 243KB)

DP2002/53 Tilat Anwar: Unsustainable Debt Burden and Poverty in Pakistan: A Case for Enhanced HIPC Initiative (PDF 239KB)

DP2002/52 Era Dabla-Norris, John M. Matoovu, and Paul Wade: Debt Relief, Demand for Eduction, and Poverty (PDF 257KB)

DP2002/51 Grzegorz W. Kolodko: Globalization and Catching-up in Emerging Market Economies (PDF 516KB)

DP2002/50 Nancy Birdsall, Stijn Claessens and Ishac Diwan: Will HIPC Matter? The Debt Game and Donor Behaviour in Africa (PDF 277KB)
A shorter version of this publication is available as Working Paper 17 from the Center for Global Development.

DP2002/49 Samuel Fambon: Endettement du Cameroun: Problèmes et solutions (PDF 594KB)

DP2002/48 Tony Addison, Abdur R. Chowdhury and S. Mansoob Murshed: By How Much Does Conflict Reduce Financial Development? (PDF 313KB)

DP2002/47 Stijn Claessens, Joseph P.H. Fan and Larry H.P. Lang: The Benefits and Costs of Group Affiliation: Evidence from East Asia (PDF 414KB)

DP2002/46 Paul Collier: The Macroeconomic Repercussions of Agricultural Shocks and their Implications for Insurance (PDF 81KB)

DP2002/45 Barbara Stallings and Rogerio Studart: Financial Regulation and Supervision in Emerging Markets. The Experience of Latin America since the Tequila Crisis (PDF 282KB)

DP2002/44 Lisandro Abrego and Doris C. Ross: Debt Relief under the HIPC Initiative. Context and Outlook for Debt Sustainability and Resource Flows (PDF 859KB)

DP2002/43 Andrew McKay: Assessing the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Poverty (PDF 207KB)

DP2002/42 John Hawkins: International Bank Lending. Water Flowing Uphill? (PDF 292KB)

DP2002/41 Carlos Budnevich L.: Countercyclical Fiscal Policy. A Review of the Literature, Empirical Evidence and some Policy Proposals (PDF 280KB)

DP2002/40 Simon Feeny and Mark McGillivray: Aid, Public Sector Fiscal Behaviour and Developing Country Debt (PDF 216KB)

DP2002/39 Gabriel Demombynes, Chris Elbers, Jenny Lanjouw, Peter Lanjouw, Johan Mistiaen and Berk Özler: Producing an Improved Geographic Profile of Poverty: Methodology and Evidence from Three Developing Countries (PDF 610KB)

DP2002/38 Danny Quah: One Third of the World's Growth and Inequality (PDF 260KB)

DP2002/37 Christiana E.E. Okojie: Gender and Education as Determinants of Household Poverty in Nigeria (PDF 337KB)

DP2002/36 Stephany Griffith-Jones and Stephen Spratt: The New Basle Capital Accord and Developing Countries: Issues, Implications and Policy Proposals (PDF 95KB)

DP2002/35 Alemayehu Geda: Debt Issues in Africa: Thinking beyond the HIPC Initiative to Solving Structural Problems (PDF 468KB)

DP2002/34 Günther Rehme: (Re)Distribution of Personal Incomes, Education and Economic Performance Across Countries (PDF 382KB)

DP2002/33 Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa: Fiscal Policy, Growth and Poverty Reduction in Uganda (PDF 152KB)

DP2002/32 Sonia Bhalotra: Welfare Implications of Fiscal Reform: The Case of Food Subsidies in India (PDF 370KB)

DP2002/31 Avinash Persaud: Liquidity Black Holes: And Why Modern Financial Regulation in Developed Countries is making Short-Term Capital Flows to Developing Countries Even More Volatile (PDF 212KB)

DP2002/30 Graciela Moguillansky: Non-Financial Corporate Risk Management and Exchange Rate Volatility in Latin America (PDF 459KB)

DP2002/29 Elisabetta Bertero and Laura Rondi: Does a Switch of Budget Regimes Constrain Managerial Discretion? Evidence for Italian Public Enterprises' Investment (PDF 459KB)

DP2002/28 Jonathan Conning and Michael Kevane: Why isn't there more Financial Intermediation in Developing Countries? (PDF 359KB)

DP2002/27 Clas Wihlborg: Insolvency and Debt Recovery Procedures in Economic Development: An Overview of African Law (PDF 425KB)

DP2002/26 Jean-Philippe Platteau: The Gradual Erosion of the Social Security Function of Customary Land Tenure Arrangements in Lineage-Based Societies (PDF 470KB)

DP2002/25 Markus Goldstein, Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet: Is a Friend in Need a Friend Indeed? Inclusion and Exclusion in Mutual Insurance Networks in Southern Ghana (PDF 162KB)

DP2002/24 Christopher B. Barrett, Stein Holden and Daniel C. Clay: Can-Food-for-Work Programmes Reduce Vulnerability? (PDF 316KB)

DP2002/23 Jerry Skees, Panos Varangis, Donald Larson and Paul Siegel: Can Financial Markets be Tapped to Help Poor People Cope with Weather Risks? (PDF 297KB)

DP2002/22 Stefan Dercon: Income Risk, Coping Strategies and Safety Nets (PDF 335KB)

DP2002/21 Rasmus Heltberg: The Poverty Elasticity of Growth (PDF 229KB)

DP2002/20 Peter G. Warr: Poverty Incidence and Sectoral Growth: Evidence from Southeast Asia (PDF 204KB)

DP2002/19 George Fane and Peter Warr: How Economic Growth Reduces Poverty: A General Equilibrium Analysis for Indonesia (PDF 1441KB)

DP2002/18 Ricardo Ffrench-Davis and Guillermo Larraín: How Optimal are the Extremes? Latin American Exchange Rate Policies During the Asian Crisis (PDF 325KB)

DP2002/17 Tilat Anwar: Impact of Globalization and Liberalization on Growth, Employment and Poverty: A Case Study of Pakistan (PDF 231KB)

DP2002/16 Elisabetta Bertero and Laura Rondi: Hardening a Soft Budget Constraint Through 'Upward Devolution' to a Supranational Institution: The Case of Italian State-Owned Firms and the European Union (PDF 509KB)

DP2002/15 M.H. Suryanarayana: Poverty in India: Misspecified Policies and Estimates (PDF 273KB)

DP2002/14 Leonce Yapo: Déterminants de l'endettement extérieur des PPTE: Cas de la Côte d'Ivoire (PDF 187KB)

DP2002/12 Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa: Privatization in sub-Saharan Africa: On Factors Affecting Implementation (PDF 341KB)

DP2002/11 Masahiko Aoki and Hirokazu Takizawa: Understanding the Silicon Valley Phenomena (PDF 230KB)

DP2002/09 Stuart L. Gillan and Laura T. Starks: Institutional Investors, Corporate Ownership, and Corporate Governance: Global Perspectives (PDF 310KB)

DP2002/08 Ethan Ligon: Targeting and Informal Insurance Risk (PDF 619KB)

DP2002/07 Marcel Fafchamps: Inequality and Risk (PDF 3017KB)

DP2002/06 Pedro Albarran and Orazio P. Attanasio: Do Public Transfers Crowd Out Private Transfers? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico (PDF 337KB)

DP2002/05 Hulya Dagdeviren, Rolph van der Hoeven and John Weeks: Redistribution Does Matter Growth and Redistribution for Poverty Reduction (PDF 655KB)

DP2002/04 Oliver Morrissey: Making Debt Relief Conditionality Pro-Poor (PDF 236KB)

DP2002/03 John Williamson: Proposals for Curbing the Boom-Bust Cycle in the Supply of Capital to Emerging Markets (PDF 232KB)

DP2002/02 Helmut Reisen: Ratings since the Asian Crisis (PDF 258KB)

DP2002/01 Youssoufou Congo: Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Burkina Faso (PDF 247KB)

DP2004/08 James B. Davies: Microsimulation, CGE and Macro Modelling for Transition and Developing Economies (PDF 254KB)

DP2004/07 Ruut Veenhoven: Subjective Measures of Well-being (PDF 250KB)

DP2004/06 Des Gasper: Human Well-being: Concepts and Conceptualizations (PDF 291KB)

DP2004/05 Stephan Klasen: Gender-Related Indicators of Well-Being (PDF 253KB)

DP2004/04 Erik Thorbecke: Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Poverty Analysis (PDF 211KB)

DP2004/03 Ernest Aryeetey: A Development-focused Allocation of the Special Drawing Rights (PDF 231KB)

DP2004/02 Bart Capéau and André Decoster: The Rise or Fall of World Inequality: A Spurious Controversy? (PDF 233KB)

DP2004/01 Anthony Shorrocks and Guanghua Wan: Spatial Decomposition of Inequality (PDF 200KB)

DP 2001/147 Ritva Reinikka and Jakob Svensson: Explaining Leakage of Public Funds (PDF 541KB)

DP 2001/146 Henning Tarp Jensen and Finn Tarp: On the Choice of Appropriate Development Strategy: Insights from CGE Modelling of the Mozambican Economy (PDF 407KB)

DP 2001/145 P. B. Anand: Consumer Preferences for Water Supply? An Application of Choice Models to Urban India (PDF 552KB)

DP 2001/144 Karin Kronlid: Household Welfare and Education in Urban Ethiopia (PDF 624KB)

DP 2001/143 Aleš Bulír and A. Javier Hamann: How Volatile and Unpredictable are Aid Flows, and What are the Policy Implications? (PDF 732KB)

DP 2001/142 Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay: Twin Peaks: Convergence Empirics of Economic Growth across Indian States (PDF 978KB)

DP 2001/141 Tony Addison: Do Donors Matter for Institutional Reform in Africa? (PDF 256KB)

DP 2001/140 P.B. Anand: Water 'Scarcity' in Chennai, India: Institutions, Entitlements and Aspects of Inequality in Access (PDF 608KB)

DP 2001/139 Machiko Nissanke and Benno Ferrarini: Debt Dynamics and Contingency Financing: Theoretical Reappraisal of the HIPC Initiative (PDF 1724KB)

DP 2001/138 Justine Nannyonjo: The HIPC Debt Relief Initiative: Uganda's Social Sector Reforms and Outcomes (PDF 318KB)

DP 2001/137 Erich Gundlach, José Navarro de Pablo and Natascha Weisert: Education Is Good for the Poor: A Note on Dollar and Kraay (2001) (PDF 197KB)

DP 2001/136 Syed M. Ahsan: Institutional Framework and Poverty: A Transition Economy Perspective (PDF 468KB)

DP 2001/135 Vadim Radaev: The Development of Small Entrepreneurship in Russia (PDF 309KB)

DP 2001/134 David Mayer-Foulkes: Convergence Clubs in Cross-Country Life Expectancy Dynamics (PDF 427KB)

DP 2001/133 Orlando San Martin: Reaching the Poor: Fine Tuning Poverty Targeting Using a 'Poverty Map'-The Case of Mozambique (PDF 669KB)

DP 2001/132 Jennifer Mbabazi, Oliver Morrissey and Chris Milner: Are Inequality and Trade Liberalization Influences on Growth and Poverty? (PDF 291KB)

DP 2001/131 Arne Bigsten: Relevance of the Nordic Model for African Development (PDF 221KB)

DP 2001/130 Constantino J. Gode: Sovereign Debt and Uncertainty in the Mozambican Economy (PDF 634KB)

DP 2001/129 Arne Bigsten and Jörgen Levin: Growth, Income Distribution, and Poverty: A Review (PDF 324KB)

DP 2001/128 Stephen Knowles: Inequality and Economic Growth: The Empirical Relationship Reconsidered in the Light of Comparable Data (PDF 306KB)

DP 2001/127 Stijn Claessens, Simeon Djankov, Joseph Fan and Larry Lang: The Pattern and Valuation Effects of Corporate Diversification: A Comparison of the United States, Japan, and other East Asian Economies (PDF 347KB)

DP 2001/126 Abdalla Hamdok: Governance and Policy in Africa: Recent Experiences (PDF 168KB)

DP 2001/125 S. Mansoob Murshed: Transaction Cost Politics, Institutions for Commitment and Rent Seeking (PDF 213KB)

DP 2001/124 Ahmad Assadzadeh and Satya Paul: Poverty, Growth and Redistribution: A Case Study of Iran (PDF 365KB)

DP 2001/123 Neil McCulloch, Bob Baulch and Milasoa Cherel-Robson: Poverty, Inequality and Growth in Zambia during the 1990s (PDF 508KB)

DP 2001/122 Geske Dijkstra and Niels Hermes: The Uncertainty of Debt Service Payments and Economic Growth of HIPCs: Is there a Case for Debt Relief? (PDF 183KB)

DP 2001/121 David Booth: PRSP Processes in Eight African Countries: Initial Impacts and Potential for Institutionalization (PDF 234KB)

DP 2001/120 World Development Movement: Policies to Roll-back the State and Privatize? Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers Investigated (PDF 582KB)

DP 2001/119 Robert Osei and Peter Quartey: The HIPC Initiative and Poverty Reduction in Ghana: An Assessment (PDF 268KB)

DP 2001/118 Marko Nokkala Simulating the Effects of Debt Relief in Zambia (PDF 104KB)

DP 2001/117 Marko Nokkala: Sector Investments as part of National Fiscal Policy: Experience from ASIP in Zambia (PDF 237KB)

DP 2001/116 Maureen Were: The Impact of External Debt on Economic Growth in Kenya: An Empirical Assessment (PDF 256KB)

DP 2001/115 Moses L. Golola: Decentralization, Local Bureaucracies and Service Delivery in Uganda (PDF 254KB)

DP 2001/114 Rasmus Heltberg and Finn Tarp: Agricultural Supply Response and Poverty in Mozambique (PDF 262KB)

DP 2001/113 Kunibert Raffer: Debt Relief for Low-Income Countries: Arbitration as the Alternative to Present, Unsuccessful Debt Strategies (PDF 99KB)

DP 2001/112 Elaine Zuckerman: Why Engendering PRSPs Reduces Poverty, and the Case of Rwanda (PDF 310KB)

DP 2001/111 Stephen Browne: Waiving and Drowning? Debt and the Millennium Declaration Development Goals (PDF 115KB)

DP 2001/110 European Network on Debt and Development: Debt Reduction for Poverty Eradication in the Least Developed Countries: Analysis and Recommendations on LDC Debt (PDF 541KB)

DP 2001/109 Dick Durevall: Reform of the Malawian Public Sector: Incentives, Governance and Accountability (PDF 277KB)

DP 2001/108 Aili Mari Tripp: Non-formal Institutions, Informal Economies, and the Politics of Inclusion (PDF 236KB)

DP 2001/107 Adrian Fozzard and Mick Foster: Changing Approaches to Public Expenditure Management in Low-income Aid Dependent Countries (PDF 376KB)

DP 2001/106 Anders Danielson: Can HIPC Reduce Poverty in Tanzania? (PDF 192KB)

DP 2001/105 Jean-Claude Berthélemy: HIPC Debt Relief and Policy Reform Incentives (PDF 176KB)

DP 2001/104 Arne Bigsten, Jörgen Levin, and Håkan Persson: Debt Relief and Growth: A study of Zambia and Tanzania (PDF 275KB)

DP 2001/103 Matthew O. Odedokun and Jeffery I. Round: Determinants of Income Inequality and its Effects on Economic Growth: Evidence from African Countries (PDF 451KB)

DP 2001/102 William Easterly: The Effect of IMF and World Bank Programmes on Poverty (PDF 243KB)

DP 2001/101 S. Mansoob Murshed: Tax Competition, Globalization and Declining Social Protection (PDF 425KB)

DP 2001/100 Bernhard G. Gunter: Does the HIPC Initiative Achieve its Goal of Debt Sustainability? (PDF 379KB)

DP 2001/99 Craig Burnside and Domenico Fanizza: Hiccups for HIPCs? (PDF 362KB)

DP 2001/98 Ke-young Chu: Collective Values, Behavioural Norms, and Rules: Building Institutions for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction (PDF 634KB)

DP 2001/97 Tony Addison and Robert Osei: Taxation and Fiscal Reform in Ghana (PDF 281KB)

DP 2001/96 Lisandro Abrego and Doris C. Ross: Debt Relief under the HIPC Initiative: Context and Outlook for Debt Sustainability and Resource Flows (PDF 239KB)

DP 2001/95 Abdur R. Chowdhury: External Debt and Growth in Developing Countries: A Sensitivity and Causal Analysis (PDF 236KB)

DP 2001/94 E. S. K. Muwanga-Zake and Stephen Ndhaye: The HIPC Debt Relief Initiative: Uganda's Experience (PDF 224KB)

DP 2001/93 Tony Addison and Giovanni Andrea Cornia: Income Distribution Policies For Faster Poverty Reduction (PDF 553KB)

DP 2001/92 S. Mansoob Murshed: Conditionality and Endogenous Policy Formation in a Political Setting (PDF 127KB)

DP 2001/91 Michael Grimm: A Decomposition of Inequality and Poverty Changes in the Context of Macroeconomic Adjustment: A Microsimulation Study for Côte d'Ivoire (PDF 554KB)

DP 2001/90 Tony Addison, Alemayehu Geda, Philippe Le Billon and S. Mansoob Murshed: Financial Reconstruction in Conflict and 'Post-Conflict' Economies (PDF 197KB)

DP 2001/89 Giovanni Andrea Cornia with Sampsa Kiiski: Trends in Income Distribution in the Post-World War II Period Evidence and Interpretation (PDF 709KB)

DP 2001/88 Francisco H.G. Ferreira and Phillippe George Leite: The Effects of Expanding Education on the Distribution of Income in Ceará (PDF 848KB)

DP 2001/87 Hendrik Van der Heijden: Zambian Policy-making and the Donor Community in the 1990s (PDF 324KB)

DP 2001/86 Mohammed Salisu: Incentive Structure, Civil Service Efficiency and the Hidden Economy in Nigeria (PDF 349KB)

DP 2001/85 José A. Sulemane and Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa: The Mozambican Civil Service Incentives, Reforms and Performance (PDF 282KB)

DP 2001/84 Norman Gemmell: Fiscal Policy in a Growth Framework (PDF 388KB)

DP 2001/83 Kenneth L. Simons: Information Technology and the Dynamics of Firm and Industrial Structure (PDF 311KB)

DP 2001/82 Linda Cotton and Vijaya Ramachandran: Foreign Direct Investment in Emerging Economies: Lessons from sub-Saharan Africa (PDF 302KB)

DP 2001/81 Christopher Heady: Taxation Policy in Low-Income Countries (PDF 221KB)

DP 2001/80 Jörgen Levin: Taxation in Tanzania (PDF 278KB)

DP 2001/79 José A. Cuesta: AIDS, Economic Growth and the HIPC Initiative in Honduras (PDF 139KB)

DP 2001/78 Abdur R. Chowdhury: The Impact of Financial Reform on Private Savings in Bangladesh (PDF 441KB)

DP 2001/77 Derrick L. Cogburn and Catherine Nyaki Adeya: Prospects for the Digital Economy in South Africa: Technology, Policy, People, and Strategies (PDF 258KB)

DP 2001/75 Omar O. Chisari, Antonio Estache, and Catherine Waddams Price: Access by the Poor in Latin America's Utility Reform Subsidies and Service Obligations (PDF 335KB)

DP 2001/74 José A. Delfino and Ariel A. Casarin: The Reform of the Utilities Sector in Argentina (PDF 399KB)

DP 2001/73 Rune Stenbacka: Microeconomic Policies in the New Economy (PDF 232KB)

DP 2001/72 Matthew O. Odedokun: Public Finance and Economic Growth Empirical Evidence from Developing Countries (PDF 359KB)

DP 2001/71 Raghbendra Jha: Macroeconomics of Fiscal Policy in Developing Countries (PDF 537KB)

DP 2001/70 Tony Killick: Poverty-Reducing Institutional Change and PRSP Processes: The Ghana Case (PDF 522KB) A slightly revised version of this paper, co-authored by Charles Abugre, is available electronically on request to t.killick@odi.org.uk

DP 2001/69 Robrecht Renard and Danny Cassimon: On the Pitfalls of Measuring Aid (PDF 367KB)

DP 2001/68 Peter Hjertholm: Debt Relief and the Rule of Thumb: Analytical History of HIPC Debt Sustainability Targets (PDF 367KB)

DP 2001/67 Christopher S. Adam and David L. Bevan: Fiscal Policy Design in Low-Income Countries (PDF 488KB)

DP 2001/66 Göte Hansson: Building New States: Lessons from Eritrea (PDF 223KB)

DP 2001/65 Philippe Le Billon: Fuelling War or Buying Peace: The Role of Corruption in Conflicts (PDF 309KB)

DP 2001/64 Carlos Castel-Branco, Christopher Cramer and Degol Hailu: Privatization and Economic Strategy in Mozambique (PDF 221KB)

DP 2001/63 Rasmus Heltberg, Kenneth Simler and Finn Tarp: Public Spending and Poverty in Mozambique (PDF 531KB)

DP 2001/62 Léonce Ndikumana: Fiscal Policy, Conflict, and Reconstruction in Burundi and Rwanda (PDF 647KB)

DP 2001/61 Mark McGillivray and Oliver Morrissey: Fiscal Effects of Aid (PDF 486KB)

DP 2001/60 S. Mansoob Murshed: Quantitative Restrictions on the Flow of Narcotics: Supply and Demand Restraints in a North-South Macro-model (PDF 191KB)

DP 2001/59 Robert Read: Growth, Economic Development and Structural Transition in Small Vulnerable States (PDF 414KB)

DP 2001/58 Janine R. Wedel: Clans, Cliques, and Captured States: Rethinking 'Transition' in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (PDF 270KB)

DP 2001/57 Tony Addison and S. Mansoob Murshed: Debt Relief and Civil War (PDF 205KB)

DP 2001/56 David L. Bevan: The Fiscal Dimensions of Ethiopia's Transition and Reconstruction (PDF 358KB)

DP 2001/55 Tony Addison and Alemayehu Geda: Ethiopia's New Financial Sector and Its Regulation (PDF 210KB)

DP 2001/54 Stergios Skaperdas: Warlord Competition (PDF 144KB)

DP 2001/53 Yvonne M. Tsikata: Owning Economic Reforms: A Comparative Study of Ghana and Tanzania (PDF 119KB)

DP 2001/52 Damiano Kulundu Manda: Incentive Structure and Efficiency in the Kenyan Civil Service (PDF 102KB)

DP 2001/51 Tony Addison, Philippe Le Billon, and S. Mansoob Murshed: Conflict In Africa: The Cost of Peaceful Behaviour (PDF 115KB)

DP 2001/50 David E. Bloom and S. Mansoob Murshed: Globalization, Global Public 'Bads', Rising Criminal Activity and Growth (PDF 122KB)

DP 2001/49 Tony Addison and S. Mansoob Murshed: The Fiscal Dimensions of Conflict and Reconstruction (PDF 126KB)

DP 2001/48 Tony Addison and S. Mansoob Murshed: From Conflict to Reconstruction: Reviving the Social Contract (PDF 117KB)

DP 2001/47 Renato Aguilar: Angola's Incomplete Transition (PDF 97KB)

DP 2001/46 Jean-Paul Azam and Anke Hoeffler: Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror? (PDF 190KB)

DP 2001/45 Tony Addison and S. Mansoob Murshed: Credibility and Reputation in Peacemaking (PDF 108KB)

DP 2001/44 Tony Addison, Philippe Le Billon and S. Mansoob Murshed: Finance in Conflict and Reconstruction (PDF 87KB)

DP 2001/43 Jeffrey Herbst: The Politics of Revenue Sharing in Resource-Dependent States (PDF 43KB)

DP 2001/42 Indra de Soysa: Paradise is a Bazaar? Greed, Creed, Grievance and Governance (PDF 173KB)

DP 2001/41 Rukmani Gounder and V. Xayavong: Globalization and the Island Economies of the South Pacific (PDF 124KB)

DP 2001/40 Nick J. Freeman: The Challenges Posed by Globalization for Economic Liberalization in Two Asian Transitional Countries: Laos and Vietnam (PDF 92KB)

DP 2001/39 Jörg Mayer: Globalization, Technology Transfer, and Skill Accumulation in Low-Income Countries (PDF 138KB)
Also available from UNCTAD

DP 2001/38 Guy Mhone and Patrick Bond: Botswana and Zimbabwe: Relative Success and Comparative Failure (PDF 123KB)

DP 2001/37 Deborah Bräutigam and Michael Woolcock: Small States in a Global Economy: The Role of Institutions in Managing Vulnerability and Opportunity in Small Developing Countries (PDF 114KB)

DP 2001/36 Rolf J. Langhammer and Matthias Lücke: WTO Negotiation and Accession Issues for Vulnerable Economies (PDF 97KB)

DP 2001/35 Suthiphand Chirathivat and S. Mansoob Murshed: Globalization and Openness: Lessons from the Recent Crisis in Southeast Asia (PDF 91KB)

DP 2001/34 Gover Barja and Miguel Urquiola: Capitalization, Regulation and the Poor: Access to Basic Services in Bolivia (PDF 214KB)

DP 2001/33 Daniel A. Benitez, Omar O. Chisari and Antonio Estache: Can the Gains from Argentina's Utilities Reform Offset Credit Shocks? (PDF 127KB)

DP 2001/32 Niels Hermes and Robert Lensink: Fiscal Policy and Private Investment in Less Developed Countries (PDF 146KB)

DP 2001/31 Manuel R. Agosin: Global Integration and Growth in Honduras and Nicaragua (PDF 133KB)

DP 2001/30 Samarth Vaidya: Analyzing Corruption Possibilities in the Gaze of the Media (PDF 124KB)

DP 2001/29 Tony Addison and Aminur Rahman: Why is so Little Spent on Educating the Poor? (PDF 108KB)

DP 2001/28 Anders Danielson: Economic and Institutional Reforms in French-speaking West Africa Impact on Efficiency and Growth (PDF 144KB)

DP 2001/27 Stephen C. Smith: Blooming Together or Wilting Alone? Network Externalities and Mondragón and La Lega Co-operative Networks (PDF 326KB)

DP 2001/26 Halvor Mehlum, Karl Ove Moene and Ragnar Torvik: The Market for Extortions (PDF 169KB)

DP 2001/25 James C. Sesil, Douglas L. Kruse and Joseph R. Blasi: Sharing Ownership via Employee Stock Ownership (PDF 121KB)

DP 2001/23 Gaim Kibreab: Displaced Communities and the Reconstruction of Livelihoods in Eritrea (PDF 117KB)

DP 2001/22 Mário Adauta de Sousa, Tony Addison, Björn Ekman
and Åsa Stenman: From Humanitarian Assistance to Poverty Reduction in Angola (PDF 132KB)

DP2001/20 Ashish Arora and Suma Athreye: The Software Industry and India's Economic Development (PDF142KB)

DP2001/19 Ricardo Paredes M.: Redistributive Impact of Privatization and the Regulation of Utilities in Chile (PDF 202KB)

DP2001/18 Tony Addison: Reconstruction from War in Africa: Communities, Entrepreneurs, and States (PDF 174KB)

DP2001/17 Máximo Torero and Alberto Pascó-Font: The Social Impact of Privatization and the Regulation of Utilities in Peru (PDF 848KB)

DP2001/16 Tony Addison: From Conflict to Reconstruction (PDF 125KB)

DP 2001/15 Kristin Komives, Dale Whittington and Xun Wu: Access to Utilities by the Poor (PDF 390KB)

DP2001/14 Marc Wuyts: The Agrarian Question in Mozambique's Transition and Reconstruction (PDF 119KB)

DP2001/13 Pablo Arocena: The Reform of the Utilities Sector in Spain (PDF 174KB)

DP2001/12 Tony Addison and Léonce Ndikumana: Overcoming the Fiscal Crisis of the African State (PDF 215KB)

DP2001/11 Sampsa Kiiski and Matti Pohjola: Cross-country Diffusion of the Internet (PDF 179KB)

DP2001/10 Catherine Waddams Price and Alison Young: UK Utility Reforms. Distributional Implications and Government Response (PDF 138KB)

DP2001/9 Cecilia Ugaz: A Public Goods Approach to Regulation of Utilities (PDF 141KB)

DP2001/8 Poh-Kam Wong: ICT Production and Diffusion in Asia Digital Dividends or Digital Divide? (PDF 155KB)

DP2001/7 Pramila Krishnan: Culture and the Fertility Transition in India (PDF 192KB)

DP2001/6 Heli Koski, Petri Rouvinen and Pekka Ylä-Anttila: ICT Clusters in Europe. The Great Central Banana and the Small Nordic Potato (PDF 869KB)

DP2001/5 Jukka Jalava and Matti Pohjola: Economic Growth in the New Economy. Evidence from Advanced Economies (PDF 513KB)

DP2001/4 Colin Mayer: Financing the New Economy. Financial Institutions and Corporate Governance (PDF 296KB)

DP2001/3 Edward N. Wolff: The Impact of IT Investment on Income and Wealth Inequality in the Postwar US Economy (PDF 657KB)

DP2001/2 Jed Kolko: Silicon Mountains, Silicon Molehills. Geographic Concentration and Convergence of Internet Industries in the US (PDF 371KB)

DP2001/1 Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Sanjay Reddy: The Impact of Adjustment-Related Social Funds on Income Distribution and Poverty (PDF 566KB)

DP2003/90 Simon Appleton: Regional or National Poverty Lines? The Case of Uganda in the 1990s (PDF 204KB)

DP2003/89 Andrés Solimano: Remittances by Emigrants: Issues and Evidence (PDF 231KB)

DP2003/88 A. B. Atkinson: Innovative Sources for Development Finance: Over-Arching Issues (PDF 200KB)

DP2003/87 Robin Boadway: National Taxation, Fiscal Federalism and Global Taxation (PDF 245KB)

DP2003/86 Agnar Sandmo: Environmental Taxation and Revenue for Development (PDF 235KB)

DP2003/85 George Mavrotas: Which Types of Aid Have the Most Impact? (PDF 182KB)
DP2003/84 Salvatore Capasso and George Mavrotas: Loan Processing Costs and Information Asymmetries—Implications for Financial Sector Development and Economic Growth (PDF 211KB)

DP2003/83 Ilene Grabel: The Revenue and Double Dividend Potential of Taxes on International Private Capital Flows and Securities Transactions (PDF 225KB)

DP2003/82 John Micklewright and Anna Wright: Private Donations for International Development (PDF 229KB)

DP2003/81 Machiko Nissanke: Revenue Potential of the Currency Transaction Tax for Development Finance: A Critical Appraisal (PDF 311KB)

DP2003/80 Tony Addison and Abdur R. Chowdhury: A Global Lottery and a Global Premium Bond (PDF 305KB)

DP2003/79 George Mavrotas: The International Finance Facility: The UK HM Treasury–DFID Proposal to Increase External Finance to Developing Countries (PDF 569KB)

DP2003/78 George J. Borjas: The Economic Integration of Immigrants in the United States: Lessons for Policy (PDF 158KB)

DP2003/77 Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay: Convergence Club Empirics: Some Dynamics and Explanations of Unequal Growth across Indian States (PDF 313KB)

DP2003/76 Tony Addison and Mina Baliamoune-Lutz: Institutional Quality, Reforms and Integration in the Maghreb (PDF 206KB)

DP2003/75 Jonathan P. Thomas: Bankruptcy Proceedings for Sovereign State Insolvency and their Effect on Capital Flows (PDF 280KB)

DP2003/74 Stanislav Kolenikov and Anthony Shorrocks: A Decomposition Analysis of Regional Poverty in Russia (PDF 326KB)

DP2003/73 Javier Escobal and Máximo Torero: Adverse Geography and Differences in Welfare in Peru (PDF 3120KB)

DP2003/72 Raimo Väyrynen: Illegal Immigration, Human Trafficking, and Organized Crime (PDF 227KB)

DP2003/71 Mark McGillivray: Aid Effectiveness and Selectivity: Integrating Multiple Objectives into Aid Allocations (PDF 165KB)

DP2003/70 Luc Christiaensen, Lionel Demery and Stefano Paternostro: Reforms, Remoteness and Risk in Africa: Understanding Inequality and Poverty during the 1990s (PDF 281KB)

DP2003/69 Almas Heshmati: Measurement of a Multidimentional Index of Globalization and its Impact on Income Inequality (PDF 294KB)

DP2003/68 Matthew J. Gibney and Randall Hansen: Asylum Policy in the West: Past Trends, Future Possibilities (PDF 231KB)

DP2003/67 Ruslan Yemtsov: Quo Vadis? Inequality and Poverty Dynamics across Russian Regions (PDF 439KB)

DP2003/66 Dirk Willem te Velde and Oliver Morrissey: Spatial Inequality for Manufacturing Wages in Five African Countries (PDF 238KB)

DP2003/65 Michael Förster, David Jesuit and Timothy Smeeding: Regional Poverty and Income Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (PDF 251KB)

DP2003/64 Riccardo Faini: Is the Brain Drain an Unmitigated Blessing? (PDF 200KB)

DP2003/63 Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis: Some Welfare Implications of ‘Who Goes First?’ in WTO Negotiations (PDF 230KB)

DP2003/62 Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis: Who Gains from Tariff Escalation? (PDF 155KB)
 
DP2003/60 Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Javier Sánchez-Reaza: Economic Polarization Through Trade: Trade Liberalization and Regional Growth in Mexico (PDF 329KB)

DP2003/59 Catherine Phuong: Controlling Asylum Migration to the Enlarged EU (PDF 217KB)

DP2003/58 André Decoster and Inna Verbina: Who Pays Indirect Taxes in Russia? (PDF 395KB)

DP2003/57 Jed Friedman: How Responsive is Poverty to Growth? A Regional Analysis of Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in Indonesia, 1984-99 (PDF 655KB)

DP2003/56 Carlos Azzoni, Naercio Menezes-Filho and Tatiane Menezes: Opening the Convergence Black Box: Measurement Problems and Demographic Aspects (PDF 198KB)

DP2003/55 Bettina Aten and Alan Heston: Regional Output Differences in International Perspective (PDF 259KB)

DP2003/53 Donald R. Davis and David E. Weinstein: Market Size, Linkages, and Productivity: A Study Of Japanese Regions (PDF 205KB)

DP2003/52 Chris Elbers, Peter Lanjouw, Johan Mistiaen, Berk Özler and Ken Simler: Are Neighbours Equal? Estimating Local Inequality in Three Developing Countries (PDF 340KB)

DP2003/51 Jaan Masso and Almas Heshmati: Optimality and Overuse of Labour in Estonian Manufacturing Enterprises (PDF 324KB)

DP2003/50 Nilabja Ghosh: Impact of Trade Liberalization on Returns from Land: A Regional Study of Indian Agriculture (PDF 279KB)

DP2003/49 Mark McGillivray: Modelling Aid Allocation: Issues, Approaches and Results (PDF 240KB)

DP2003/48 Elizabeth Thomas-Hope: Irregular Migration and Asylum Seekers in the Caribbean (PDF 306KB)

DP2003/47 Lucian Cernat, Sam Laird, Luca Monge-Roffarello and Alessandro Turrini: The EU's Everything But Arms Initiative and the Least-developed Countries (PDF 460KB)

DP2003/46 Jon D. Haveman and Howard J. Shatz: Developed Country Trade Barriers and the Least Developed Countries: The Economic Results of Freeing Trade (PDF 234KB)

DP2003/45 Tony Addison and Almas Heshmati: The New Global Determinants of FDI Flows to Developing Countries: The Importance of ICT and Democratization (PDF 274KB)

DP2003/44 Mario Reyna-Cerecero and George Mavrotas: Inflation, Output and Perfectly Enforceable Price Controls in Orthodox and Heterodox Stabilization Programmes (PDF 245KB)

DP2003/43 Matthew Odedokun: The ‘Pull’ and ‘Push’ Factors in North-South Private Capital Flows: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Estimates (PDF 322KB)

DP2003/42 Jörg Mayer: Export Dynamism and Market Access (PDF 213KB)

DP2003/41 Jonathon W. Moses and Bjørn Letnes: If People were Money: Estimating the Potential Gains from Increased International Migration (PDF 215KB)

DP2003/40 Stéphane Gagnon: E-business Model Innovation and Capability Building (PDF 307KB)

DP2003/39 Inna Verbina: Inconsistency in Savings Pattern: Is there an Endogeneity Bias? (PDF 180KB)

DP2003/38 Maiju Perälä: ‘Looking at the Other Side of the Coin’: The Relationship between Classical Growth and Early Development Theories (PDF 229KB)

DP2003/37 Maiju Perälä: Persistence of Underdevelopment: Does the Type of Natural Resource Endowment Matter? (PDF 283KB)

DP2003/36 Kræn Blume, Björn Gustafsson, Peder J. Pedersen and Mette Verner: A Tale of Two Countries: Poverty among Immigrants in Denmark and Sweden since 1984 (PDF 242KB)

DP2003/35 Philip Martin: Economic Integration and Migration: The Mexico-US Case (PDF 236KB)

DP2003/34 Géraldine Chatelard: Iraqi Forced Migrants in Jordan: Conditions, Religious Networks, and the Smuggling Process (PDF 230KB)

DP2003/33 Mark McGillivray and Bazoumana Ouattara: Aid, Debt Burden and Government Fiscal Behaviour: A New Model Applied to Côte d’Ivoire (PDF 191KB)

DP2003/32 Betina Dimaranan, Thomas Hertel and Roman Keeney: OECD Domestic Support and Developing Countries (PDF 249KB)

DP2003/31 Stephen Castles and Sean Loughna: Trends in Asylum Migration to Industrialized Countries: 1990-2001 (PDF 420KB)

DP2003/30 Roghieh Gholami, Sang-Yong Tom Lee and Almas Heshmati: The Causal Relationship between Information and Communication Technology and Foreign Direct Investment (PDF 215KB)

DP2003/29 Andrés Solimano: Development Cycles, Political Regimes and International Migration: Argentina in the Twentieth Century (PDF 405KB)

DP2003/28 Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Tony Addison with Sampsa Kiiski: Income Distribution Changes and their Impact in the Post-World War II Period (PDF 326KB)

DP2003/27 Ana María Iregui: Efficiency Gains from the Elimination of Global Restrictions on Labour Mobility: An Analysis using a Multiregional CGE Model (PDF 236KB)

DP2003/26 Matthew Odedokun: Analysis of Deviations and Delays in Aid Disbursements (PDF 280KB)

DP2003/25 Kym Anderson: Trade Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries (PDF 224KB)

DP2003/24 Susan F. Martin, Andrew I. Schoenholtz and David Fisher: Impact of Asylum on Receiving Countries (PDF 204KB)

DP2003/23 Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson: What Fundamentals Drive World Migration? (PDF 232KB)

DP2003/22 Birgitte Andersen and Marva Corley: The Theoretical, Conceptual and Empirical Impact of the Service Economy: A Critical Review (PDF 212KB)

DP2003/21 Mark McGillivray: Descriptive and Prescriptive Analyses of Aid Allocation: Approaches, Issues and Consequences (PDF 264KB)

DP2003/20: Khalid Koser and Nicholas Van Hear: Asylum Migration and Implications for Countries of Origin (PDF 197KB)

DP2003/19 Claudia Tazreiter: Asylum-seekers as Pariahs in the Australian State: Security Against the Few (PDF 195KB)

DP2003/18 Svetlana P. Glinkina and Dorothy J. Rosenberg: Social and Economic Decline as Factors in Conflict in the Caucasus (PDF 1023KB)

DP2003/17 Tony Addison, Mark McGillivray and Matthew Odedokun: Donor Funding of Multilateral Aid Agencies: Determining Factors and Revealed Burden Sharing (PDF 247KB)

DP2003/16 Robbie Mochrie: Economic and Theological Approaches to Debt Cancellation (PDF 182KB)

DP2003/15 George Mavrotas and Bazoumana Ouattara: Aid Disaggregation, Endogenous Aid and the Public Sector in Aid-Recipient Economies: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire (PDF 252KB)

DP2003/14 Roger Kelly and George Mavrotas: Financial Sector Development – Futile or Fruitful? An Examination of the Determinants of Savings in Sri Lanka (PDF 169KB)

DP2003/13 Samuel Munzele Maimbo and George Mavrotas: Financial Sector Reforms and Savings Mobilization in Zambia (PDF 242KB)

DP2003/12 Roger Kelly and George Mavrotas: Savings and Financial Sector Development: Panel Cointegration Evidence from Africa (PDF 211KB)

DP2003/11 George Mavrotas and Bazoumana Ouattara: The Composition of Aid and the Fiscal Sector in an Aid-Recipient Economy: A Model (PDF 184KB)

DP2003/10 Timothy M. Shaw: Conflict and Peace-building in Africa: The Regional Dimensions (PDF 590KB)

DP2003/09 Stefan Dercon and Pramila Krishnan: Food Aid and Informal Insurance (PDF 345KB)

DP2003/08 Stefan Dercon and John Hoddinott: Health, Shocks and Poverty Persistence (PDF 156KB)

DP2003/07 Dietrich Domanski: Idiosyncratic Risk in the 1990s: Is It an IT Story? (PDF 255KB)

DP2003/06 Shyamal K. Chowdhury and Susanne Wolf: Use of ICTs and the Economic Performance of SMEs in East Africa (PDF 218KB)

DP2003/05 Simon Feeny: What Determines Foreign Aid to Papua New Guinea? An Inter-temporal Model of Aid Allocation (PDF 283KB)

DP2003/04 Matthew Odedokun: Economics and Politics of Official Loans versus Grants Panoramic Issues and Empirical Evidence (PDF 292KB)

DP2003/03 Jeffery I. Round and Matthew Odedokun: Aid Effort and its Determinants (PDF 238KB)

DP2003/02 Oluyele Akinkugbe: Flow of Foreign Direct Investment to Hitherto Neglected Developing Countries (PDF 243KB)

DP2003/01 Matthew Odedokun: A Holistic Perception of Foreign Financing of Developing Countries’ Private Sectors: Analysis and Description of Structure and Trends (PDF 359KB)
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Go to more Discussion Papers: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
 
 
 
 
 
United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
30 papers prepared for the discussion at the UNRISD meeting on
The Need to Rethink Development Economics: 7-8 September 2001,
Cape Town, South Africa.
1.- A Brief Note on the Decline and Rise of Development Economics
By Jayati Ghosh - 2001
Economics as a discipline has always been concerned with development. The early economists, from the Physiocrats through Smith and Ricardo to Marx, were essentially concerned with understanding the processes of economic growth and structural change: how and why they occurred, what forms they took, what prevented or constrained them, and to what extent they actually led to greater material prosperity and more general human progress. And it was this broader set of "macro" questions which in turn defined both their focus and their approach to more specific issues relating to the functioning of capitalist economies. It is true that the marginalist revolution of the late 19th century led economists away from these larger evolutionary questions towards particularist investigations into the current, sans history. Nevertheless it might be fair to say that trying to understand the processes of growth and development have remained the basic motivating forces for the study of economics. To that extent, it would be misleading to treat it even as a branch of the subject, since the questions raised touch at the core of the discipline itself.

But of course, what is now generally thought of as development economics has a much more recent lineage, and is typically traced to the second half of the twentieth century, indeed, to the immediate postwar period of the 1950s and 1960s when there was a flowering of economic literature relating to both development and underdevelopment. While some of this became the basis for subsequent "structuralist" analysis, much of the standard literature of that time was still very much within the mainstream of the discipline, and retained the fundamentals of the mainstream approach even while altering some of the assumptions. Thus, the economic dualism depicted by Arthur Lewis, the co-ordination failures inherent in less developed economies described by Rosenstein-Rodan, the efficacy of unbalanced "big push" strategies for industrialisation advocated by Albert Hirschman, all in a sense dealt with development policy as a response to the market failures which were specific to latecomers
15.- On Rethinking Development Economics
By C.P.Chandrasekhar - 2001
Do we need to rethink ‘development economics’? An answer to that question must begin with a delineation of its subject matter, consisting of a specific set of stylised facts that are its starting point, leading to a set of assumptions and a mode of reasoning that help address and answer a range of questions.

In my view development economics starts from the fact that integration through the market does not ensure that the developed countries provide the developing an image of their own future. The transformation wrought through such integration, while triggering some capitalist development in the less developed world, also generated structures that rendered the process gradual, incomplete and adverse for growth and welfare. Development economics was concerned with understanding the specific structures, global and national, generated by the process of integration of economies with varying initial conditions into the world capitalist system, with analysing the mechanisms by which those structures constrained the process of development and with deriving from that analysis the policy options available to redress the adverse consequences of integration. In this sense it shared with the Keynesian tradition the project of making the abstract world constructed for economic analysis correspond more closely with the world as it exists, and of making the aim of economic analysis the generation of appropriate policies.
2.- An Agenda for the New Development Economics
By Joseph Stiglitz - 2001
The seeming disappearance of development economics as a separate discipline some quarter century ago could not have come at a more inopportune time. Some of the criticisms made by mainstream economists of development economics as it was often practiced at the time are valid: for instance, it underestimated the role of markets and rationality. But their argument that developing countries are just like more developed countries, only lacking as much physical (and later, it was emphasized, human) capital and their assumption that competitive equilibrium theorem can be applied in a straightforward way is, if anything, even more misguided.

In the last two decades, there has been a growing awareness of the limitations of the competitive paradigm, with its assumptions of perfect information, perfect competition, and complete markets, and with the correlate that distribution and institutions do not matter. Much of the theoretical and empirical work in developed countries has focused, for instance, on agency theory (how information imperfections affect firm behavior and labor markets), the new industrial organization (how imperfections of competition affect corporate behavior), finance (viewed as centering on the information problems associated with allocating capital and monitoring its usage), and R & D. Yet, in this same period, the reigning paradigm in development economics was the Washington consensus, which ignored these considerations, despite the fact that they are even more important to developing countries.

3.- Beyond Macroeconomic Concerns to Development Issues
By Delphin Rwegasira - 2001
This note, by outlining the research and capacity-building experience of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), argues that renewed interest in development economics can be assisted in part by the development of locally-based responsive and empirical knowledge. This process can be substantially aided by international networking and dissemination, which in turn would lead to a broader expansion of knowledge on development. The evolution of AERC beyond a macroeconomic network to embrace wider questions of development policy is seen as rooted in Africa’s own realities of searching for substantially higher growth and ways of reducing widespread poverty.

There is consensus based both on theory and on the development experiences of many countries that on the whole, macroeconomic stability is essential for long-term economic commitments that contribute to a healthy and sustained saving-investment process. The latter is in turn necessary, though by no means sufficient, for the sustained growth needed to underpin significant changes in average well-being. Thus, in situations where reasonable macroeconomic stability cannot be assumed to exist, such stability would be an important concern in respect of promoting development. The African economic crisis of the 1980s—that saw the United Nations General Assembly, for the first time, devoting considerable attention to the economic plight of a particular region, (Sub-Saharan Africa)—was in part reflected in clearly worsening macroeconomic conditions in many countries of the region.
4.- Challenges of Economic Development
By Alexandre R. Barros - 2001
In recent times, the world has experienced important changes, both ideologically and in relation to the economic environment. These changes have posed serious challenges to the analysis of economic development and to its policies proposals.

Some previously well settled conceptions have completely fallen apart. Historical evidences and empirical investigations made conceptions previously considered opposite to one another go to the same side of debates. Many ideas were placed upside down. Four theoretical developments have been quite important in promoting such changes in conceptions and in the analysis of economic development:
1.- the New Growth Theory, which reached conclusions on economic development that were reasonably different from those obtained from traditional Neoclassical Growth Theory.
2.- the idea of Rent Seeking.
3.- the idea of the role of clustering on efficiency.
4.- the new conceptions on social capital.

This paper summarises the major consequences of these theoretical developments to the ideas about economic development and the proper strategies to its promotion. The major hypothesis is that the best path to economic development, which all these notions point to, is in fact a combination of some recipes stressed by Structuralists and by Liberals in the early stages of economic development.
5.- Development Economics: A Call to Action
By Roy Culpeper - 2001
The primary challenge confronting development economists in the 21st century is not that of creating a new theoretical framework to understand, and respond to, the development problems and opportunities facing the world community. Rather, their challenge is to deploy their skills as applied economists, heeding the circumstances unique to each country, in order to help eradicate poverty, reduce inequities, and advance sustainable development. In other words, development economists should address the development policy agenda in the real world, in all its untidiness and diversity.

Democratization has opened up a political space in which this challenge must be met, but democracy is itself a work in progress. The frontier that development economists must explore and help to settle is that of democratizing economic policy-making. With greater inclusion and popular participation in economic policy-making, development economists will be called upon to work with their fellow-citizens, partly as experts, partly as educators and facilitators. Their tasks will include identifying the social welfare function, translating it into a series of social choices or possibilities constrained by available resources, and determining the set of fiscal, monetary, exchange-rate, trade and other policies that are both consistent and politically viable.

In other words, economic planning is on its way back, but this time it will be planning from below. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are a manifestation of the shape of things to come. An important question is what difference PRSPs will make to policies actually adopted and to real outcomes. An increasingly globalized economy limits (and, to some extent, also enhances) the choices and possibilities open to each society. Planners must take into account the mobility of factors of production, particularly that of capital and skilled labour, in determining what policies are consistent and politically viable.
6.- Development Economics: Coping with New Challenges, Especially Globalization
By Jomo K.Sundaraman - 2001
As is well-known, development economics fell into disrepute in the West, especially in the USA, with the rise of neo-liberalism from the late seventies. This coincided with the denunciation of Keynesian economics with the simultaneous occurrence of inflation and slow growth, seemingly contradicting the Philips’ curve trade-off associated with the ‘neoclassical synthesis’ or cooptation of Keynes. The eighties began with Carter appointee US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker’s sharp reversal of developing country growth of the seventies, with the UN promise of a New International Economic Order, following the 1973-5 oil price hike, subsequent commodity price booms and low real interest rates, thanks to Anglo-American commercial bank recycling of petroleum revenue to lend to developing country governments and high inflation.

Thus, the Reagan-Thatcher decade began with the debt crises of Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Korea and the Philippines, enabling the post-Bretton Woods International Monetary Fund (IMF) to take over macroeconomic policy with its stabilization policies and the World Bank to require indebted governments to abandon development policies in favour of economic liberalization through structural adjustment policies.
In the World Bank, the McNamara era associated with the intellectual leadership of Hollis Chenery gave way to the appointment of Anne Krueger as Chief Economist and Deepak Lal as head of research soon after the publication of his Poverty of Development Economics.
7.- Development Studies or Development Economics: Moving forward from TINA
By Gita Sen - 2001
Rethinking is not resuscitation. Too much breast-beating at this stage about the all too well known sins of commission and ommission of neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus or, more broadly, of neoclassical economics, may divert attention from the actual weaknesses of development economics on the one hand, and on the other, the critical issues ahead that urgently call for understanding and action. So much intellectual energy has been spent on combatting the TINA syndrome with respect to SAPs and financial liberalization that, with a few exceptions, our analysis has not adequately recognized the changes in both the regimes of accumulation and the modes of regulation that underpin the neoliberal thrust. Understanding these changes as the basis of neoliberalism does not mean falling into the TINA trap; instead it should help to more precisely locate what is possible.

In my note, I would also like to shift focus from development economics (more narrowly understood) to development studies, because I believe that one of the weaknesses of development economics arises precisely from its inability to integrate the richer understanding based on development studies more broadly. And indeed, at quite the same time that traditional development economics was reeling from the onslaught of the neoliberals, our analysis and understanding of participatory approaches to rural development, the importance of sustainable livelihoods, and the need for a gendered analysis of development (to name only a few) have been growing and flourishing. It is important to remember that development studies is certainly not dead regardless of the obituaries that have been written for development economics over the last two decades.
8.- Economic Development and the Revival of the Classical Surplus Approach
By Franklin Serrano and Carlos Medeiros - 2001
In this note we describe how we have been trying to rethink development economics in our own research programme and teaching (both graduate and undergraduate) practice in the Instituto de Economia at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In our view, traditional development economics , in spite of its great achievements, suffered from two serious problems. First of all, development economists had a chronic tendency to jump too quickly to the normative dimension, to suggesting policy interventions while perhaps not having clarified sufficiently how the developing economies actually functioned. This tendency was so deeply entrenched that often some of the best development economists fell into the habit of treating the developing capitalist economies as if they were planned or socialist systems (witness Kalecki’s treatment of what he called “mixed economies” or the widespread use of “Say’s Law” in Latin American Structuralist literature).

The other, very much related, basic shortcoming of development economics was the fact that development economists did not in general engaged themselves into a detailed discussion of the normal operation of the market mechanism , of what it could or it could not realistically achieve. That often led to some underestimation of the difficulties of planning on the product markets and , more importantly, to enormous confusion and ambiguity concerning what happens in the markets for the so called factors of production (i.e. how distribution, labour employment and capital utilisation are actually determined).
9.- Enclavity and Constrained Labour Absortive Capacity in Southern African Economies
By Guy C. Z. Mhone - 2001
The fact that the majority of the African labour force continues to be either openly unemployed or under-employed continues when many other developing countries that were similarly placed about three decades ago have made the crucial turn toward more inclusive growth and development continues to be one of the most vexing issues in economic policy analysis. This problem has continued to fester under all kinds of policy regimes thereby belying the usual optimistic assumptions by economists about the long run. Indeed the persistence of this problem remains the Achilles heel of current economic reforms, which appear to have been uncritically embraced as the panacea.

The problem of unemployment and under-employment that afflicts many of the countries in Africa is in this paper being referred to as the problem of the low labour absorptive capacity of African economies with special reference, to Southern African countries. While there may be sufficient consensus regarding the efficacy of certain packages of measures such as stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes in promoting growth, there is still much debate, if not scepticism about the ability of any measures or policies attempted so far, to resolve the perennial problem that afflicts the majority of the labour force in Africa.

The problem of the low labour absorptive capacity of African economies strikes at the heart of the growth and development problematique and should not be dismissed lightly by appealing to the long run impact of trickle down effects or the possibility of people lifting themselves up by their boot-straps as a result of the efficacy of market mechanisms. It is necessary that the debate about the paradigms informing various policy stances be opened anew.

This paper resorts to an earlier paradigm initially mooted by Arthur Lewis [Gersowitz, 1983] in a number of his writings within the context of neo-classical analysis but also propagated in various forms by Marxist inspired political analysts of under-development. More recently, the Structuralism school has continued this line of argument but often at the margin of the policy debates. This paradigm is one that looks at African economies as being afflicted by a legacy of enclave growth and development which is partly a legacy of the manner in which capitalism penetrated these countries as late comers on the global development scene; and partly as a consequence of the failure of various policy regimes of both the socialist and market oriented types to address the structural roots of the problem through policies of omission and commission.

The paradigm of enclavity would link the problem of the low labour absorptive capacity of African economies to the a structural legacy of economic dualism that is in part self perpetuating, even within a market context that is ideal in terms of current structural adjustment programmes, and in part policy induced, even if inadvertently. The implications of this is that proactive polices are needed in addition to the usual market friendly measures to undo the vicious circle of perpetual under-employment that afflicts the majority of the labour force.
10.- For an Emancipatory Socio-Economics
By Diane Elson - 2001
I would like to take as my starting point the need to rethink all of economics, not only the kind of analysis and policy that is applied to the ensemble of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that are often labelled ‘developing’. The problem is not that neoclassical economics works well for ‘developed’ countries while not fitting ‘developing’ countries, but that it does not work well for any country.

In rethinking what kind of economics is needed for ‘developing’ countries, it is important to make links with currents of thought that are also challenging the hegemony of neoclassical economics in ‘developed’ and ‘transition’ countries. If neoclassical economics is allowed to appear (even by default) as the appropriate economics for rich and powerful countries, then any reconstituted ‘development economics’ will continue to be marginalised, both in the policy arena and in the curriculum.

There are several currents of thought that contain challenges to the dominance of neoclassical economic thinking- structuralist, post-keynesian, evolutionary economics among them. My remarks draw in particular on two -the human development current and the feminist economics current . They reflect a belief in the importance of pluralism in thinking about economies.

Unlike the World Bank’s World Development Report, the UNDP Human Development Report examines issues of poverty, inequality and growth in all countries. The human development approach challenges the merely instrumental treatment of human beings as ‘factors of production’ in the service of economic growth no matter where it takes place. Similarly, feminist economics (as exemplified, for instance, in the journal Feminist Economics, and in special issues of World Development on gender, trade, and macroeconomics, Vol 23, No 11, 1995 and Vol 28, No.7, 2000) challenges the validity of ‘rational economic man’ for rich countries as well as for poor ones; and argues that unpaid time spent caring for family, friends and neighbours is an economic issue, not just a personal issue, all over the world. This does not mean that human development and feminist economics try to force all countries into a ‘one size fits all’ straitjacket. Rather they have rejected straitjackets as an appropriate way of dealing with intractable reality.

Of course, any social science has to engage in abstraction. The problem is to choose the forms appropriate to the question in hand. ‘Horses for courses’, as Joan Robinson was fond of saying. Rethinking cannot avoid some grappling with methodological issues.

There is a need for thought experiments at high levels of abstraction to think through possible regularities in interconnections and linkages; but in applied analysis, there has to be scope for investigating particularities that may subvert those generalities. The same set of stylised facts will not fit the whole world. This was indeed the premise of ‘development economics’. However, there is no longer, if indeed there ever was, a neat bifurcation between a set of stylised facts that fit ‘developed countries’ and a set that fit ‘developing countries’. A much richer typology is needed.

11.- Inequality and Poverty as the Condition of Labour
By Marc Wuyts -2001
The 1980s witnessed a radical break (at the level of theoretical discourses) with both Keynesianism and structuralist development economics, concurrent with the re-assertion of neo-classical economics. What tied Keynesianism and structuralist development economics together, however, was not just they shared critical views of neoclassical economic theory, but also a number of shared premises concerning economic analysis. While it is true that the most of the early development economists argued that the economies of the Third World were supply- constrained, not demand-constrained this did not mean that development economics not deeply influenced by the mainstream economic discourse at the time with its explicit focus on the macroeconomics of employment and the dynamics of unemployment.

On the contrary, they acknowledge that in developing countries large-scale hidden or disguised unemployment prevailed, but argued that this problem could not be remedied by boosting effective demand. Instead, what was needed – they argued – was a protracted transformation of the developing economy to absorb surplus labour through the expansion of wage labour in the process of industrialisation fuelled by investment.

12.- International Economic Policy
By Manuel Montes - 2001
The struggles of the new nations that emerged in the previous century to develop their peoples and the stressful link between these struggles and their integration into the international economy constitute the basic ground for the context and recent history. These struggles involve overcoming “structural” disadvantages in the sense that there are basic socio-economic barriers that have to be overcome and that there has been no continuum of development like an escalator that countries can smoothly ride up to higher levels. The term “developing country” in this text is used as a short-hand for the set of countries also called “less-developed,” “middle-level,” and “transition” which must overcome socio-economic constraints, political, institutional, and private sector weaknesses to develop themselves. Whether or not increased dependence on the international economy assists these aspirants in overcoming these obstacles is part of the intellectual fabric of the past and the unfinished weaving of future policy innovation.

In the 1950s, during the era of the disassembly of colonial systems, the question of how to reduce poverty and redress the imbalance against developing countries was answered through programs of national development, including extensive state intervention to create modern industries and a marked disengagement of the domestic economy from international markets. The configuration of international markets and institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, set in place based on the lessons learned from the worldwide depression of the 1930s, conformed to the theories and practices of the new field of development economics, which emerged in this period.

The initial post-War global financial system, managed through the IMF under fixed exchange rates, for example, provided national governments with the means to independently inflate or deflate their economies, as appropriate. This system began to break down in 1971, when the United States suspended the convertibility of dollar into gold. Failures in many national development programs and the developing country debt crisis of the 1980s instigated a rethinking of the old approach. Beginning in the early 1980s, the World Bank, instead of focusing solely on financing investment projects in developing countries, began to assist these countries in undertaking policy reform packages under the rubric of “structural adjustment programs.” This new approach sought to promote greater productivity (and consequently development) by permitting economic pressures, including those from international competition, to determine which industries a developing country would retain.
13.- Lessons from Transition Economies: Strong Institutions are More Important than the Speed of Reforms
By Vladimir Popov - 2001
Ten years ago, on the eve of transition, economic discussion in the profession was dominated by the debate between shock therapists, who advocated radical reforms and rapid transformation, and gradualists, justifying a more cautious and piecemeal approach to reforms. Shock therapists pointed out to the example of East European countries and Baltic states – fast liberalizers and successful stabilizers, that experienced a recovery after 2 to 3 years fall in output, while their CIS counterparts were doing much worse. Gradualists cited the example of China, arguing that the lack of recession and high growth rates is the direct result of the step by step approach to economic transformation. Shock therapists were arguing that “one cannot cross the abyss in two jumps”, that rapid liberalization allows to avoid painful and costly period, when the old centrally planned economy (CPE) is not working already, while the new market one is not working yet.

As time passed, there appeared statistics that allowed to test the predictions of theories. Quite a number of studies were undertaken with the intention to prove that fast liberalization and macro-stabilization pays off and finally leads to better performance (Sachs, 1996; De Melo, Denizer, and Gelb, 1996; Fisher, Sahay, Vegh, 1996; Aslund, Boone, Johnson, 1996; Breton, Gros, and Vandille, 1997; Fisher, Sahay, 2000). To prove the point, the authors tried to regress output changes during transition on liberalization indices developed by De Melo et al. (1996) and by EBRD (published in its Transition Reports), on inflation and different measures of initial conditions.

The conventional wisdom was probably summarized in the 1996 World Development Report From Plan to Market, which basically stated that differences in economic performance were associated mostly with "good and bad" policies, in particular with the progress in liberalization and macroeconomic stabilization: countries that are more successful than others in introducing market reforms and bringing down inflation were believed to have better chances to limit the reduction of output and to quickly recover from the transformational recession. “Consistent policies, combining liberalization of markets, trade, and new business entry with reasonable price stability, can achieve a great deal even in countries lacking clear property rights and strong market institutions” – was one of the major conclusions of the WDR 1996 (p. 142). The conclusion did not withstand the test of time, since by now most economists would probably agree that because liberalization was carried out without strong market institutions it led to the extraordinary output collapse in CIS states. Liberalization may be important, but the devil is in details, which often do not fit into the generalizations and make straightforward explanations look trivial.
14.- Notes on Development Economics
By Lance Taylor - 2001
It has been accepted, even by the mainstream, that macroeconomics in "developing" and "transition" economies needs its own special treatment - witness the recent publication of new, fat textbooks by Agenor/Montiel and Jha (and for all I know, possibly others). In the mainstream fashion, they try to homogenize critical ideas into rational actor goo, but the fact that the books were written and sell indicates that a long effort on the part of people doing macro in non-industrialized countries to point out that they do have special features has in part paid off. I'll try to sketch below how this intellectual beachhead might be extended.

The point (based on non-formalized historical/institutional reasoning by people like Amsden, Wade, and Chang) that hands-on interventionist policies have played an essential role in supporting industrialization and growth in both now-rich and poor countries has also sunk in. This is not to say that analyses of industrial policy and sensible protectionism dominate mainstream discourse - of course they do not - but that conventional wisdom has been on the defensive at least since the Bank's East Asian Miracle report. Again, there is a beachhead to be expanded.
16.- Opening Space for Development
By Stephany Griffith-Jones - 2001
In the past, countries had national development strategies. Even though the external sector could play an important role, the basic dynamics for development was seen to come from within countries (Sunkel, 1993). In the 1990's, the new development strategy became liberalisation, and in particular integration into the global economy. The basic indicators for a "successful" development strategy became how much the trade and capital account had been opened up, how much the financial sector had been liberalised, how much the economy had been privatised. Indeed, globalisation and liberalisation became the new development agenda.

To some extent, this new development strategy arose from external pressures. A particularly high profile in the analysis has been given to influence via IMF and World Bank conditionality. However, perhaps more important - and increasingly so - is the pressure arising from "financial markets," which heavily influence both development strategies and macro-economic policies. Governments increasingly follow policies that are not necessarily the best for their economies or their peoples, but that are "acceptable to the markets" because if they do not do so, they will be implacably punished by those markets (Eatwell, 1997). However, the shift towards a rather pure liberalising and globalising agenda by most developing countries arose not only from external pressures, but also reflected the widespread view in many of the developing countries (and particularly amongst their governing elite) that market reform and, particularly, opening the economy to global links would lead to faster growth and higher investment and employment. Implicitly, there was a belief that countries which reformed well would significantly increase their exports and attract large and stable external capital flows, which would complement domestic savings and help increase productivity.
17.- Producing a New Generation of Practising Development Economists
By Susan Joekes - 2001
This note addresses a secondary question posed in Thandika Mkandawire’s scene setting paper -Thandika Mkandawire (2001) “The Need to Rethink Development Economics”, Geneva, UNRISD) - for this conference: How to produce a new generation of development economists. I choose this topic (rather than the primary one of the essentials for a new development economics per se because it is of particular concern to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The IDRC’s mandate is to support the growth of expertise in development by supporting research and the generation of evidence based knowledge for development policy across many fields, including economic development. In this paper, I will present some ideas on the kind of economic development research that is needed for successful capacity building in research, making special reference to IDRC’s programme experience in international economic relations.

The IDRC has a remit to nurture the growth of expertise in economic development primarily among citizens of the developing world itself, working in the south. There are two main reasons for this mandate, which does not of course signify any inherent prejudice against the scholarship and insights of those based in the north. Channelling our resources in this way does something (on however small a scale) to redress biases in resource availabilities for research efforts as between the north and the south. More importantly perhaps, in a world governance perspective, it is intended to contribute toward the authenticity and autonomy of southern voices in development policy making. Just as local priorities should be determining in aid allocations, so the policy positions espoused by developing countries in international fora should be locally generated and informed by local research. When policy formulation is driven by outside forces and outside knowledge, the credibility of policy positions is always questionable and international agreements entered into may not be fully respected down the line.

The presumption that support for research translates into a better informed - and therefore more credible and effective - southern voice in international policy fora is of course questionable and certainly not something IDRC takes for granted. In recent years IDRC has tried to develop a better understanding of the relationship between research and policy, fuelled by consideration of, among other things, events and processes related to the international economic system. We are confident that, despite many complicating factors and the presence of other determinants, there often is positive relationship between research activity and policy, and that, moreover, there are practical ways of enhancing this relationship.
18.- Reclaiming the Right to Development
By Kari Polanyi Levitt - 2001
In 1986, the United Nations adopted a declaration on "The Right To Development" as an inalienable human right, embracing "all civil, economic, social, cultural and other human rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Since this Declaration was adopted, "globalization" has devalued sovereign equality and stripped states of monetary, fiscals and administrative policy instruments essential to the formulation and implementation of pro-active strategies of economic and social development. The authority of the United Nations has declined. Private global capital flows have displaced official development assistance as a major source of external finance. Market criteria of profitability (cost-recovery) have prevailed over egalitarian social criteria in the provision of public goods directly affecting the well being of people. International inequalities have escalated. Domestic disparities have widened in most countries Commodity prices continue to fall. Finance has been privileged at the expense of productive activity and countries open to capital flows have born the full economic, social and human costs of adjustment to ever more frequent and damaging financial and economic crises. Primary commodity exporters have always been price-takers. They have always been forced to adjust to business cycles in the industrial centers by pro-cyclical policies.

Thanks to twenty years of "structural adjustment", they have also become policy-takers. Development as a national and social project supported by the international community is in suspense- in large regions of the world in regression. A rising tide of outrage at global inequities has attracted the attention of the world. There is a growing sense that "globalization" is a non territorial form of imperialism, imposed on developing countries by legally binding obligations of compliance with rules favouring capital, enforced by trade sanctions and denial of access to finance Additional conditionalities relating to "governance", some at the insistence of influential international NGOs further constrain policy autonomy. Scores of countries have been encouraged - sometimes bullied - into excessive dependence on export earnings and foreign credits by programmes designed by the staffs of the Bretton Woods Institutions The International Monetary Fund has become a foreign policy instrument of the United States. Crises have been used as opportunities to radically restructure economies - most scandalously in the case of South Korea.

Since the end of the cold war, the only remaining super power has acted as self-appointed global policeman. Military interventions targeted at physical and social infrastructure have punished civilian populations for the alleged misdeeds of their leaders. The George W. Bush administration has flaunted an extreme posture of unilateralism, with disregard of the views of even the closest allies. The influence of financial and corporate power at the highest levels of government calls for new initiatives to protect populations and societies of the developing world from exploitation and societal collapse.

There is a crying need for creative thinking and new initiatives to protect the gains of development from devastation by financial hurricanes fed by institutional investors who freely move funds in and out of countries at the tap a keyboard with no responsibility for the impact of their operations on ‘host" countries. The IMF, BIS, G7, G 20 etc., are captive to the overriding interest of protecting the value of global financial investment; regardless of collateral damage to shattered lives and hopes of millions. Consensus of developing countries in international negotiations with the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO is hostage to policies which pit country against country in competition for export markets and foreign investment.
19.- Reflections on the Restoration of Development Economics
By Jeff Faux - 2001
The restoration of development economics is not solely an intellectual task. If this were the case, the world’s policy makers and their academic advisers would have acknowledged long ago the failure of neo-liberal policies to deliver on the acceleration of global growth promised by neo-liberal theory. And the animal spirits of careerist economists would have motivated a rush to new intellectual ground. Instead, the economics profession’s reaction to the accumulating evidence of failure has been, at best, to concede that progress along the neo-liberal path takes a little more time – and that there will, of course, be some casualties. (“Didn’t we mention it? Sorry about that!”) We are assured that there is no need for policies to promote social equity or democracy. Those will come as a by-product of more rapid sustained economic growth, which, if we are patient, will arrive in due course. Any renewed interest in the public sector and civil society institutions is limited to assigning them to the task of caring for the “losers” whom the deregulated market has left behind.

This reaction reminds us that the triumph of neo-liberalism in academic as well as policy circles was not entirely an intellectual exercise either. Its rise to hegemony is a part of a wider conservative political agenda. All economic theories, like all economic systems, come with a politics. Indeed, political science itself has been defined as the practice of “who gets what.” Neo-liberal economic thought is, as most of us know, connected to the multinational political and financial forces that currently dominate the post-Cold War global economy. This does not mean that all neo-liberal scholarship is politically motivated. It simply means that the rich and powerful typically support the scholarship that reinforces their view of the way the world should work. It would be odd if it were otherwise.
Over the years, these multinational interests have created a global “echo chamber” through which ideas that support their agenda resonate among the policy-making institutions, the media, universities, think tanks, and the larger literate public. They particularly targeted journalists and the media, who represent “gatekeepers” to the global policy debate.

The effect of this echo chamber on the policy debate is to drown out dissent based on empirical research with second-rate research and analysis rationalizing de-regulation, short-term investment horizons, and the increased commodification of human values. An examination of the economic motivations and behavior of those institutions (and their clients) that determine development policy needs to be part of any serious effort to resuscitate development economics. As Amartya Sen recently observed. “The whole power structure underlying the institutional architecture itself needs to be reassessed in the light of the new political reality.”

Another implication is that the arguments for a new development paradigm must be consciously organized. By itself, quality does not necessarily prevail in the marketplace for ideas.
20.- Reviving Development Economics: Eight Challenges and Dilemmas
By Kamal Malhotra - 2001
Reviving Development Economics is both crucial and full of challenges and dilemmas which are particularly acute in this era of economic neo-liberalism led globalisation. First and foremost, it implies reviving the developmental role of the state in leading economic and social policy making. This does not, however, mean a return to the total dominance of the role of the state to the exclusion of all other actors, especially civil society but also the market. In fact, quite the contrary, because it implies creating space for a plurality of organisations, each playing roles at which they are best. It does mean, however, that there should be a socially activist state that leads society’s development efforts---a state that creates an enabling environment both for civil society which is committed to a democratization and development project and for a vibrant market which is also committed to contributing to society’s overall developmental efforts.

The biggest obstacle to such a revival is the neo-liberal economic climate that has informed global economic policy making since the early 1980s----and in particular the policy prescriptions that the US and UK governments have championed both at home and overseas since then and the role of the international financial institutions (IFIs) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) which are heavily influenced by them. The United Nations system also appears increasingly constrained by the policies of these governments both for financial and other reasons.

Economic neo-liberalism has also unsurprisingly coincided with or even caused the death of development economics as a serious academic course of enquiry particularly in the US but also in the UK where it had traditionally had a much longer and vibrant history. Without a revival of development economics in both these centres of industrialized power, especially in the US, it is hard to imagine a global economic climate which will be conducive to a strong developmental socially activist state in the South or useful and relevant international financial and other multilateral institutions.
21.- Some Issues in Development Economics
By Gerry Helleiner - 2001
I suspect that it may not be productive to try to resurrect the "grand theorizing" of the early "greats" (Lewis, Nurkse, Rosenstein-Rodan, Hirschman, etc.) in development economics or to try to build upon the "new growth" literature. This material is far too general to have much policy influence. In my postgraduate development economics reading list I used to incorporate it all under a heading of "What every student of development economics should know but is most unlikely ever to use"! My instinct is to try to build greater respect for and competence in applied economics - in a variety of fields (public finance, money, trade, open-economy-macro, health, etc.) - with particular reference to developing economies, in all their institutional, cultural, political and historical variety.

Good "development economics", in practice, is good applied economics in a variety of different specialisations and contexts. And recognition of and allowance for the variety of contexts is what distinguishes the good development economist from the weak one.

It seems to me that one needs to attack the current problem at its root - which is the traditional mainstream postgraduate economics programmes, which train the teachers and practitioners of most development economics today. I believe we must try to reduce the relative importance assigned in current mainstream postgraduate economics programmes to purely abstract reasoning; rebalance the core economic theory courses so as to place the traditional neoclassical assumptions into their appropriate context; restore economic history and history of economic thought to the core curriculum; and insist upon greater relative emphasis upon empirical and policy analysis in these programmes.

No less important, there must be conscious effort to win back the socially motivated students who are at present completely "turned off" by current postgraduate programmes. Current screening mechanisms for postgraduate studies in economics discourage many of those that the profession now most requires and attracts instead those with a predilection for abstract reasoning, mathematics, and avoidance of political or "value" judgments. Obviously, one cannot attract the "right kind" of student with the "wrong kind" of programme. This effort is therefore inextricably bound with the previous one.
22.- Some Thoughts on the Agenda for Development Economics
By Brian van Arkadie - 2001
The meeting seems to be about three things: high theory (what should academic development economists write and think about), pedagogy (what should be taught in graduate school) and policy (what should governments do or be advised to do). These are inter-related but separate subjects.

This note is written from the standpoint of an ex-academic economist, who for some years has been working in the ambiguous milieu of advisory work for governments, typically funded by donor agencies, playing a role, which may be more part of the problem than the solution. As such, I am not very aware of what now gets taught in graduate school and only occasionally am able to touch base with academic literature. On the other hand, working in both Africa and Asia, I do get to see the impact of economics at the national level in a number of Third World countries. The following reflections respond to that experience.

The influence of neo-liberal economics on policymaking during the past two decades has extended not only to current orthodoxies regarding foreign exchange, trade and macroeconomic policy regimes, but also to views regarding social policy and social service delivery, and the dismantling of State owned enterprises.

The extent of this influence is, of course, based on the decisive neo-liberal victory in the Anglo-Saxon world during the 1970’s and, perhaps even as important, the euthanasia of social democracy in the industrialised world, as it has more or less co-opted the neo-liberal agenda. In Africa, the victory of neo-liberal thinking (the Berg Report and its impact) came as a result of the coincidence of political events in the First World and the deep and pervasive economic crisis in the region – fundamental issues to be faced by African development economics continue to include analyses of the origins of that crisis and of plausible alternatives to the neo-liberal response.
23.- Some Thoughts on the Implications of Increasing Returns for Economic Development
By Renee Prendergast - 2001
This paper argues that the economics of increasing returns has shed important light on our understanding of various aspects of development. What it has not done so far, however, is generate a list of prescriptive remedies parallel to those advanced by the proponents of neo-liberalism. The paper suggests that this is in part because the effectiveness of its analysis depends on its being place and time specific and contingent on a range of institutional and cultural factors. This, it is argued, should not be allowed to prevent a fuller consideration of its implications for policy. However, given that simple rule based intervention is likely to be inappropriate, it is important to think of ways in which collective action can be organised so as to economize on entrepreneurial and organisational ability.

A quick glance through some recent issues of Finance and Development uncovers much advice recommending openness, greater reliance on the private sector and a restricted role for the state in developing countries. On closer scrutiny, the advice does not always stack up. For example, in an article on adjustment and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, Calimitsis (March 1999:p. 6) argues for the promotion of private investment on the ground that has a larger impact on growth than public investment. However, he immediately goes on to acknowledge that, in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the growth of private investment is constrained by high transactions costs as well as high levels of uncertainty.

In similar vein, in an article on private capital flows and growth published in the June 2001 issue, Mishra, Mody and Murshed make the point that when a country is poor and saves little, additional capital from outside the country can help it realize investment opportunities. However, they go on to acknowledge that ‘little foreign investment is directed to Africa and that is largely limited to a few countries with significant natural resources’ (p.3). These are just two of the many examples one can find in which positive assessments of the contribution of private capital to development are qualified by an acknowledgement that conditions of underdevelopment do not provide an attractive environment as far as private capital is concerned.

It is usual in these circumstances to acknowledge a role for ‘careful but limited government activism’ as long as this addresses failures in the working of markets especially co-ordination failures. The notion that underdeveloped economies provide an unattractive environment for private investment comes as a surprise only if the implicit vision of the economic process is one in which diminishing rather than increasing returns are the norm. In the older classical vision of the economic process, the emphasis was on increasing returns. Growth was seen as being driven by the division of labour which itself was regarded as a function of development that had already been achieved. This way of thinking about the division of labour and development in turn implied that, in certain circumstances, growth would be self-reinforcing.
24.- The Developmental Agenda in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization
By Erinç Yeldan - 2001
“Is this the end of economic developmental state?” was the opening title of a modeling exercise by Adelman and Yeldan in the Global Trade Policy Analysis meetings of Odense, June 1999. Referring to the recent Asian crisis as a point of reference, the authors utilized a smooth-functioning neoclassical model with fully flexible commodity and financial markets to show how the neoliberal global agenda severely restricts the autonomy of the developing countries to pursue strategic policies to attain development targets. Accordingly, with the recent attempts towards full liberalization of the capital account under pressures from the US and the IMF (the so-called Washington consensus), governments lost their autonomy in designing a strategic mix of the exchange rate and interest rate instruments for promotion of industrialization targets.

Thus, in Grabel’s words: “These changes, coupled with the ensuing investor euphoria, led to a general speculative appreciation of asset prices, extremely high real interest rates, and an overall shift in aggregate economic activity toward financial trading and away from industrial activities” (Grabel 1995: 128).

The assessment that the process of neoliberal globalization is associated with successive financial crises has further been a recurrent theme in much of the literature on international finance and open economy macroeconomics. Notwithstanding the original proposition of a (Tobin’s) tax on short term capital flows, the detrimental effects of unregulated flows of financial capital have been the topic of active debate in Stiglitz (2000), Rodrik (1997), Calvo, Leiderman and Reinhart (1996), Grabel (1996), Diaz-Alejandro (1985), and Velasco (1987); and also constituted one of the main themes in all of the last five annual Trade and Development Reports of UNCTAD.

In this paper, I attempt to address to the ideas provided in this literature and try to deduce implications for a renewed development policy. After a brief conceptual introduction on the distinguishing characteristics of the recent wave of globalization in the next section, I discuss the development concept as distinct from that of growth in the context of late 20th century financial liberalization and market orthodoxy in section 2. In section 3, I highlight the main mechanisms of how unfettered workings of the global financial transactions restrict the autonomy of the states to pursue indigenous development objectives and deprive them from the classic tools of austerity. Finally in section 4, I sketch some concluding comments.
25.- The Need to Rethink Development Economics
By Thandika Mkandawire - 2001
Up until the 1970s, problems of welfare and unemployment in the developed countries, and those of poverty and underdevelopment in the developing ones, were interpreted through the lenses of the corpus of knowledge recognized as Keynesian economics and “development economics” respectively. But the oil crisis, “stagflation” and subsequent indebtedness of the developing countries severely put to test the models and the theories that had underpinned their welfare and development policies.

Although there was little in common between the actual analytical content of Keynesian doctrine and that of development economics, the two approaches shared critical views of neoclassical economic theory, and the related acceptance of state intervention. They also had in common the understanding that the economy described by neoclassical economists was a “special case”, and there were many other economies that could be “stylized” by entirely different models because they were characterized by different structural features. Furthermore, they shared the view that the state could play an important role in addressing these structural features, which often resulted in “market failures”. Both were induced by the need to solve policy problems and were not merely formal theoretical disciplines whose modelling was based on “real economies” trapped in a particular equilibrium (unemployment or underdevelopment) from which they had to be extricated. These positions opened them to attack from neoliberalism.

It is perhaps not surprising that the neoclassical counterrevolution and the ascendancy of monetarism in the advanced industrial countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s led to the rejection of development economics in the South. For the neoliberal economists, development economists falsely denied the universality of rational economic behaviour and, by their focus on perversions of standard economic theory, opened doors for dirigisme. For some, the whole enterprise of development economics was a futile one, and the dirigisme associated with it was blamed for poor economic performance.

For two decades, starting from the beginning of the mid-1970s, the status of development economics in both academia and policy circles was not enviable. The titles of some of the articles published in the 1970s and 1980s clearly suggest that all was not well with the discipline: “In Praise of Development Economics” (Thirwall, A.P. 1978), “The Birth, Life and Death of Development Economics” (Seers, Dudley 1979), “The Rise and Decline of Development Economics” (Hirschmann, Albert O. 1981), “The Poverty of Development Economics (Lal, Deepak 1983), “The State of Development Theory” (Lewis, Arthur 1984). The beleaguered discipline of development economics found itself hounded out of economics departments, development finance institutions and journals as what Albert Hirschman has called “monoeconomics” spread itself.

The “pioneers” of development economics were forced into a defensive posture as they fended off accusations of providing the intellectual scaffolding for dirigisme, which had failed, as well as of downplaying the role of the market. The “death” of development economics was not merely an academic “paradigm shift”. It was given official sanction by the United States government. The US representative to the Asian Development Bank is reported (Newsweek 13th May, 1985) to have announced that the “United States completely rejects the idea that there is such a thing as ‘development economics’” (cited in Toye, John 1987: page 73). Development economics became, as John Toye remarks, “an Orwellian un-thing” in the eyes of the most powerful nation. The Spartan certainty of the ascendant neoliberalism as to what was required left no room for specialized knowledge of the problems of development. Mrs. Thatcher’s strident “There is no alternative” was echoed in international financial organizations through a standardized set of policies that was applicable to all economies.

Aside from the attribution of the causes of the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, and the ideological ascendance of neoliberalism in leading OECD countries and financial institutions, the demise of development economics had a lot to do with interpretation of the development experience of the postwar period. Up until 1997, the spectacular economic performance of the East Asian countries stood out sharply against the poor performance of most countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, and the transition economies. As with all successes, these successes aroused many claims of paternity. From the mid-1970s, through a series of OECD studies (Little, I., T. Scitovsky, and M. Scott 1970), the “counter-revolution” of neoclassical economics claimed that success was evidence of the wisdom of relying on market forces. In contrast, the “lost decades” of much of Africa and Latin America were blamed on “development planning”, which distorted prices and led to slower growth. Indeed, the experiences of the quintessential development states were evoked as evidence against development economics.
26.- The Neo-Liberal Doctrine and the African Crisis
By Machiko Nissanke - 2001
The core model of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) undoubtedly reflects a revival of neo-liberal orthodoxy in mainstream economics as well as in popular global economic policy debates in the 1980s. In this sense, SAPs are an application of the neo-conservatism of the Thatcher-Reagan era to development economics- a product of the neo-liberal ’counter-revolution’. The legitimacy of ’development economics’ as a distinct subject discipline was seriously challenged in the process.

The ascendancy of the neo-liberal school in development economics has not only impoverished the development policy debate with its monolithic understanding of the essentially multi-dimensional process of socio-economic development, but also inflicted irrecoverable costs and pains to low-income countries by imposing its doctrine in the form of conditionality to Structural Adjustment Loans. While its supremacy as applied to developed and emerging market economies has been gradually questioned after a series of global financial crises in the 1990s, its application to low income developing countries has been surviving as the core component of loan conditionality.

Drawing on my recent papers on the topic noted in the bibliography attached, this brief paper examines the effects of application of neo-liberal policies on the continuing fragility faced by most low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Indeed, since the early 1980s, the economic policy and development debate in SSA have been singularly dominated by SAPs. The debate concerning the appropriateness of SAPs for SSA countries continues to be unabated despite nearly two decades of ’adjustments’. The accumulated evidence generally points to the weak link between adjustment and performance in Africa (UNCTAD, 1998). After 15-20 years of reform efforts, the region’s growth performance remains far too low to lead the economies along a path of economic development, which would counter growing levels of poverty. The incidence of poverty is estimated to be in the range of 40 to 66 percent. In short, much of Africa today is still mired in ’a crisis in development’, i.e., an economy seized by the general incapacity to generate a sustained improvement in the standard of living.
27.- The "Washington Consensus" and Development Economics
By Mark Weisbrot - 2001
The disappearance of development economics, and replacement of economic development strategy with a simple code for liberalizing international trade and capital flows, has undoubtedly contributed to the economic failure experienced by the vast majority of low to middle income countries over the last two decades. Thandika Mkandawire and others have summarized some of the analytical capacity and tools that were lost in this neo-classical and neo-liberal resurgence. In many ways it is similar to the loss of knowledge in the natural sciences due to clerical influence during the Middle Ages; so it is a great thing that the UNRISD has taken up this project not only to recover lost knowledge but to lay the foundation for real progress in both practice and theory.
I would like to reverse the natural order of such a discussion and begin with the specific rather than the general, to focus first on the political and strategic aspects of reviving Development Economics. To move away from the extremist position that now dominates economic thinking and practice on these subjects will require simultaneous battles on a number of fronts. We will need to create the political, intellectual, and media space for a more honest discussion of very crucial economic issues - a discussion that barely exists, in the most prominent forums, at present. This could take a long time, but some of it can be done piece-by-piece: there are certain strategic reforms that may be winnable in the near future, that could bring us much closer to these goals.
28.- Thoughts and Proposals on Reviving Development Economics
By Joseph Y. Lim
There are three main factors that caused the decline of development economics, especially during the eighties and nineties. These reasons are:

1. As explained well in the other papers in this conference, the hegemony of the neoclassical non-interventionist and monetarist/rational expectations schools in mainstream economics during the seventies and eighties succeeded in removing from the mainstream literature developmental and interventionist approaches to economics. This included the almost successful attempt to kill Keynesian theory and to convert it into a theoretical oddity.

2. The core of development economic theories embodied in a) Lewis’, Ranis-Fei’s and the dependency theorists’ debates on the dual economy, b) works on ‘big push’, ‘balanced and unbalanced growth’ and ‘import-substitution strategy’ by Rosenstein-Rodan, Nurkse, Hirschman, etc. – all did not employ the ‘elegant’ ‘rational’, optimizing and comparative statics framework and methodology of neoclassical economics. It is interesting to note that the ‘big push’ and ‘learning by doing’ (or ‘picking winners’ in the technology and knowledge-intensive sectors) theories were able to become fashionable when presented in the neoclassical style of comparative dynamics in the endogenous growth models of Lucas, Romer, Schlifer and Vishny, etc. The methodology mattered, but we must remember that the historical conditions that brought about the rise of the endogenous growth models in the eighties and nineties precisely involved the lack of empirical validity of the traditional neoclassical growth model, especially with the rise of the East Asian ‘miracles’. (They had to turn to the disgraced theories of development economics to partly find the right answer.) Another point is that the ascendancy and dominance now of new Keynesian and new institutional theories that allow ‘market failures’, institutions and governance structures to enter the mainstream is their use of neoclassical models and tools as well as the increasingly fashionable game theory approach.

3. A third reason which we should not ignore is the entry in the sixties and seventies of so many other topics in the realm of development economics, which merely duplicated existing fields in economics but applying them in a ‘Third World’ context. Areas and topics in the fiscal, monetary, exchange rate arenas, labor economics, international trade, agricultural economics, education and social sector (population, health, etc.) – just take a quick look at the contents of Todaro’s textbook whatever edition – were all included as part of ‘development economics’. This ‘borrow from mainstream theory and apply to a Third World context’ scheme, plus the lack of an elegant neoclassical model (described in no. 2 above), naturally relegated development economics to a status of ‘soft’ economics indistinguishable from sociology, psychology and other social sciences, and unbefitting of true ‘hard-core’ scientific and analytical (neoclassical) economics.
29.- Towards Developmental Democracy: A Note
By Adebayo Olukoshi - 2001
Some two decades of neo-liberal ascendancy in socio-economic policy making and management have taken their toll on the development process around the world generally and in developing countries especially. Coming into the developing countries under the rubric of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank structural adjustment programmes, the neo-liberal policies that were promoted encompassed virtually all aspects of economic and social life, with the attendant consequences, including political ones, that have been widely observed in the literature.

Whether it be with regard to the exchange rate, prices, interest rates, subsidies, the entire trade and industrial policy regime, the budgetary framework and public expenditures, investment policy, taxation and revenue mobilisation, infrastructure development, or in such areas as social policy (encompassing health and education), labour market policy, and the management of public enterprises, the accent over the last two decades has been placed emphatically on the promotion of a market-driven system side by side with the retrenchment of the state and curtailment of state intervention. The policies that were at the heart of the structural adjustment programmes were presented as the core of a new "consensus" on the management of the economy to which no (viable) alternative exists; in fact, they were more reflective of the hegemonic influence exercised by the key Western regimes and the multilateral financial/economic institutions which they control. These governments and institutions served as the springboard for the spread of neo-liberal policies around the world, using an array of conditionality and cross-conditionality clauses to compel developing countries to embrace their preferred options for the reform of ailing national economies.

Yet, as has been acknowledged even by the World Bank, structural adjustment has generally failed to achieve the results which its authors promised it would deliver. (It bears pointing out though that even with the repeated acknowledgement by the Bank about the shortcomings of its policy prescriptions, orthodox structural adjustment measures continue to be administered on developing countries as the panacea to their economic difficulties).

Amidst the on-going discussions about the limitations of the neo-liberal philosophical and policy underpinnings of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment, and against the backdrop of the serious concerns which have been raised, both before and since the recent East Asian crisis, about the massive and rapid trade and financial liberalisation measures associated with the current processes and structures of globalisation, various alternatives to neo-liberalism are beginning seriously to be considered. At the heart of some of these alternatives is a concern to bring development back into the mainstream of economic and social policy-making. This note is intended to contribute to this discussion by suggesting that the quest, which is highly welcomed, for a new developmentalism should be imbued with and undertaken in a framework that is by definition democratic. It will draw on the specific African experience for this purpose.
30.- Women, Politics and a Development Economics Renaissance
By Ritu R. Sharma - 2001 I come to this discourse from the perspective of an advocate, a lobbyist to be more precise, working to open the minds of U.S. policy makers to alternative thinking on development, including the role of gender in development. I think there are roughly four steps required to mainstream a new development economics theory and policy—empirical research, theory formulation and testing, education of technical experts in the use of new theory, and the ultimate adoption of the new theory by policy decision makers.

Of these four steps, Women’s EDGE focuses its work on the last: to get U.S. policy makers to abandon the “Washington Consensus” and embrace a new formula for development, one which includes gender in its basic equation. Therefore, I will focus my contribution on how we might “close the loop” between researchers, economists, and decision-makers. And, as you have already gathered from the name of my organization, I will offer some thoughts on how the neo-liberal model has affected women and why any new thinking on development economics must ground itself in the most basic social organization humans have—male and female.
Róbinson Rojas: Sustainable development in a globalized economy? The odds. 1999
Róbinson Rojas: Sustainable development in a globalized economy. 1997
Róbinson Rojas: Making sense of development studies
Róbinson Rojas: Notes on the philosophy of the capitalist system
Róbinson Rojas: Notes on economics: assuming scarcity
Róbinson Rojas: Notes on economics: about obscenities, poverty and inequality
Róbinson Rojas: Notes on structural adjustment programmes
Róbinson Rojas: Agenda 21 revisited (notes)
Róbinson Rojas: 15 years of monetarism in Latin America: time to scream
Róbinson Rojas: Latin America: a failed industrial revolution
Róbinson Rojas: Latin America: the making of a fractured society
Róbinson Rojas: Latin America: a dependent mode of production
Róbinson Rojas: The 'adjustment' of the world economy
Róbinson Rojas: The transnational corporate system in the late 1990s
Róbinson Rojas: A market-friendly strategy for development
Róbinson Rojas: Notes on agribusiness in the 1990s
Róbinson Rojas: Transnational corporations in developing countries
Róbinson Rojas: Latin America: blockages to development
Róbinson Rojas: Development Studies: Researching for the big bosses?
Róbinson Rojas: International capital and intellectual dishonesty
The New Economic Geography: effects and policy implications
A symposium sponsored by The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
August 24-26, 2006
- Shift in economic geography and their causes
- Consequences for production and prices, employment and wages
- Consequences for financial markets and global savings and investment
- Strategies for growth - Implications for monetary policy - Overview panel
From The Economist
On the hiking trail 
Globalisation is generating huge economic gains. That is no reason to ignore its costs
Aug 31st 2006

7 June 2005
Declaration
EuroMemorandum Group
European Economists  for an Alternative Economic Policy in Europe
June 2005
After the French and Dutch No to the Constitution:
The EU needs a new economic and social development strategy.
  "The French and Dutch No to the Constitution opens  the window for a thorough reflection and public discussion about the way in which the people want to live in Europe. The majority of voters have rejected the elitist project of a European construction, which subordinates the democratic lives and material well-being of the people to the rules of markets and competition. They perceived European policies in their real lives as a threat to their economic and social welfare, as source of increasing insecurity for their work and incomes, as mounting inequality and injustice and as an obstacle to relevant democratic participation possibilities in the process of shaping a society which allows them to lead a free and independent life...".
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Puro Chile la memoria del pueblo
Proyecto para el Primer Siglo Popular 		English
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Informes Control Ciudadano:
2004: Miedos y miserias. Obstáculos a la seguridad humana
2003: Los pobres y el mercado
2002: El impacto social de la globalización en el mundo
2001: La distribución de la riqueza
2000: Políticas nacionales contra la pobreza
1999: La globalización no está beneficiando a quienes más la necesitan
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