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Publications (38)
– Core Themes in Global Economics
Leading scholars and policymakers reflect on current thinking in development economics and on what may happen during the next two decades. Covering the major themes in development in an accessible way, this original and authoritative contribution highlights new and emerging issues, and shows how...
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The evolution of the development doctrine over the last six decades is analysed in some detail in this paper. The development doctrine is defined as the body of knowledge consisting of four interrelated components: (1) the prevailing development objectives; (2) the conceptual state of the art...
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– International Comparisons
This paper suggests how the targeting efficiency of government programmes may be better assessed. Using the ‘pro-poor policy’ (PPP) index developed by authors, the study investigates the pro-poorness of not only government programmes geared to the poorest segment of the population, but also basic...
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– A Kaldorian Analysis
This paper uses a Kaldorian framework to examine the evidence of deindustrialization in developing countries at low levels of income, the jobless growth in these economies and the fast expansion of the informal sector. The questions are specifically examined for the Indian economy, using state level...
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– The Case of China
This paper explores the politically determined development objectives and the intrinsic logic of government intervention policies in east developed countries. It is argued that the distorted institutional structure in China and in many least developed countries, after the Second World War, can be...
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The ability of low-income countries to productively absorb large amounts of external assistance is a central issue for efforts to scale-up aid. This paper examines absorptive capacity in the context of MDG-based development programmes in low-income countries. It first defines absorptive capacity...
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While the opportunities offered by globalization can be large, the question is often raised whether the actual distribution of gains is fair and, in particular, whether the poor benefit proportionately less from globalization and could under some circumstances actually be hurt by it. The paper...
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– Issues and Evidence
The study suggests that gender inequality acts as a significant constraint to growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and that removing gender-based barriers to growth will make a substantial contribution to realizing Africa’s economic potential. In particular we highlight gender gaps in education, related...
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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...
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The level, tenor and instability of capital flows from global financial markets towards developing countries are a major source of concern for macroeconomic managers, while their causes remain largely unexplained by economic theory. Country ‘fundamentals’ (such as economic growth, monetary stability...
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Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption and, in turn, leads to further inequalities. Most corruption models focus on the institutional determinants of government dishonesty. However, such accounts are problematic. Corruption is remarkably sticky over time. There is a...
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– Learning From Successes and Failures
This article aims to contribute to the discussion about how to make development interventions more effective by analyzing the factors contributing to the success or failure of rural development projects. We made an aggregate level analysis of 46 projects in the field of agricultural research (AR)...
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Adam Smith, Tom Paine, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx were all bold and outspoken about the injustices of extreme inequality, nationally and internationally. Yet by almost every standard, global inequality has grown substantially since they were writing, and national income inequality also over the...
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– Asymmetries in the Global Economy
Openness is not necessarily good for the poor. Reducing trade protection has not brought growth to today’s poorest countries, and open capital markets have not been good for the poorest households in emerging market economies. In this paper I present evidence on these two points. First, countries...
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– The Case of Mexico
Health is an asset with an intrinsic value as well as an instrumental value. Good health is a source of wellbeing and highly valued throughout the world. Health is not only the absence of illness, but capacity to develop a person’s potential. Health is also an important determinant of economic...
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This paper seeks to analyze the prospects for development in a changed international context, where globalization has diminished the policy space so essential for countries that are latecomers to development. The main theme is that, to use the available policy space for development, it is necessary...
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This paper is concerned with the problems of achieving lasting peace. One dimension includes fairly sharing the post-war economic and political pie or the peace dividend. This requires post-war allocations that are envy free. Many peace agreements that end civil wars are notoriously unstable in that...
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– Theory, Evidence and Policy
Innovations spur science-based trade and industrial development in a fast changing pace of globalization. Knowledge accumulation and diffusion have been increasingly recognised as fundamental factors that play an important role in long-run economic growth. This paper focuses on the long-term...
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– Growth, Technological Catch-up, Technological Change and Human and Physical Capital Deepening
This paper studies the distribution of output per worker between the years 1980 and 2000 in different country groups. The study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to decompose the changes in the distribution of labour productivity into changes in productive efficiency, changes in best practice...
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There is a growing literature which analyses, using cross-country data, whether institutions or geography is the most important deep determinant of economic development. The empirical proxies for institutions used in this literature focus on the definition of institutions, formal and informal. This...
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Many development policies and programmes are premised on a traditional economic model of rationality to predict how individuals will respond to changes in incentives. Despite the emphasis of these programmes on poverty reduction, economists and the development community in general are still unable...
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– Correlated Impacts on Health, Wealth, Fertility and Education
In this paper we discuss the results of research into the impact of foreign aid on human development. Rather than focusing on per capita income, as is common in the existing literature, we look at how aid impacts on a range of human development indicators, including measures, of health, education...
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– Critical Trends and New Challenges
At the beginning of the twenty-first century there is a rare coincidence of profound transformations in a number of areas, in population dynamics, in human settlements, in science and technology, economics, social stratification, in the role and functions of the states and in the global power...
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Institutions are not only created and built, but also, and especially, need to be learnt. It is a process which takes place in all economies, but acquires a special importance in less advanced countries. Not only theoretical arguments, but also the practical experience over the past 15 years...
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– The Meaning of Economic Development
The paper compares perspectives on the meaning of development in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the contemporary period, with a focus on the works of Dudley Seers and Amartya Sen. Both men were critical of the development literature of their times. Seers was especially critical of neoclassicism’s...
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– Has It Come Out of Its Marginality?
This paper explores the role migration has played in development studies, and in debates on economic growth and poverty. It argues that, despite a recent surge of interest in international migration and remittances, research on human mobility particularly for labour within poor countries does not...
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– Understanding Increased Violence in Early Post-Conflict Transitions and Its Implications for Development
A key issue for development in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has been an escalation of violence during post-conflict transitions. A long-term goal for international donor involvement is to assist in building legitimate and effective political, economic, and legal institutions...
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– Using Energy Efficiency as a Lever
In most transitional and many developing countries institutions capable of supporting economic development with localized saving-investment cycles have not developed. This crucial gap is in no way addressed by either country-level macro programmes dealing with ‘development finance’ or by donor...
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– Implications for Governance, Economic Policy and Performance
Rents tend to be relatively high in developing countries and also very fungible, so that differences in the scale of the rent and in its distribution among economic agents profoundly affect the nature of the political state and the development trajectory. This paper identifies two basic trajectories...
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– Evidence for 1975 to 2003
The concept of convergence is extended to the human development index. Evidence of weak absolute convergence is found over 1975-2002. The results are robust and verified by various conditional β-convergence models and also supported by the evidence of weak σ-convergence. Population weighted analyses...
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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...
Displaying 32 of 38 results