Engaging conventional arguments that the persistence of plantations is the cause of economic underdevelopment in the Caribbean, this book focuses on the discontinuities in the development of plantation economies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the early twentieth century. CŽsar Ayala analyzes and compares the explosive growth of sugar production in the three nations following the War of 1898—when the U.S. acquired Cuba and Puerto Rico—to show how closely the development of the Spanish Caribbean's modern economic and social class systems is linked to the history of the U.S. sugar industry during its greatest period of expansion and consolidation. Ayala examines patterns of investment and principal groups of investors, interactions between U.S. capitalists and native... Less

The focus of this volume is on international trade, economic development, and the strategic analysis of technology transfer from a developing country's perspective, especially of relevance to India. The author showcases his work using simple models and addresses the topics that have influenced the literature mainly in the last three decades. The unifying theme in the volume has two essential aspects: relating each paper in terms of its exact theoretical contribution and its relevance from the perspective of an open developing economy. The collection of essays in this volume, published over the last twenty years, are related to international trade, economic development and the strategic analysis of technology transfer from a developing country's perspective, especially India. The volume is... Less

Why are some countries richer than others? Why do some economies grow so much faster than others do? Do economies tend to converge at similar levels of per capita income? Or is catching up simply impossible? These questions have vast implications for human welfare. After a period of lack of interest in growth theory, they are back on the research agenda of mainstream economics. They have also been at the heart of development economics since its inception some decades ago. This book endeavors to answer such questions by blending classical contributions to development theory with recent developments in the economics of growth.The unifying theme is that early theoretical insights and accumulated empirical knowledge of development economics have much to offer to research in the theory and... Less

This applied, practical approach to environmental economic theory is ideal, even if you have minimal economics exposure. The text's strong focus on policy and solid economic theory combines with timely real applications. You gain a clear perspective of the relationship between market activity and the environment with a robust business perspective that's often overlooked in other similar texts. The book emphasizes the use of economic analytical tools, such as market models, benefit-cost analysis, and risk analysis, to assess environmental problems and evaluate policy solutions.

The new economic sociology is based on the theory that patterns of economic behavior are shaped by social factors. "The Sociology of the Economy" brings together a dozen path-breaking empirical studies that explore how social forces—such as shifts in political power, the influence of social networks, or the spread of new economic ideas—shape real-world economic behavior. The contributors—all leading economic sociologists— show these social forces at work in a diverse range of international settings and historical circumstances. Examining why so many American banks followed industry leaders into foreign markets in the 1970s, only to pull back within a few years, Mark Mizruchi and Gerald Davis suggest that social emulation rather than rational calculation led banks to expand globally... Less

Understanding the drivers and inhibitors of economic growth is critical for promoting development in less developed countries, including India. This book examines economic growth in India from 1951 to the present, challenging many accepted orthodox views. It argues that growth and stagnation should be considered over the medium term, and that the precise role of the state – in relation to particular historical and political- economic circumstances – is more important than the overall level of state involvement or disengagement. The book uses an empirical approach to contend that the state has an important role in several key areas including: mobilising a surplus; allocating the surplus in an efficient way to productive investment projects; and in building institutions (including political... Less

This book shows that although innovations in energy systems represent a core contribution to achieving national and international energy policy goals, theoretical approaches to understanding innovation differ radically between separate disciplinary perspectives. The need for greater mutual learning between these approaches is met within this study as international academics from economic, institutional and management backgrounds share and analyse their respective approaches, knowledge and insights.

The authors have two purposes in this book, and they succeed admirably at both. They develop a general model of public policy making focused on the difficulties of securing intertemporal exchanges among politicians. They combine the tools of game theory with Williamson's transaction cost theory, North's institutional arguments, and contract theory to provide a general theory of public policy making in a comparative political economy setting. They also undertake a detailed study of Argentina, using statistical analyses on newly developed data to complement their nuanced account of institutions, rules, incentives and outcomes. Mariano Tommasi (Ph.D. in Economics, University of Chicago, 1991) is Professor of Economics at Universidad de San Andres in Argentina. He is past President... Less

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst... Less

Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional... Less

Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development demonstrates the importance of one of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics winners Elinor Ostrom's research program. The Bloomington School has become one of the most dynamic, well recognized and productive centers of the New Institutional Theory movement. Its ascendancy is considered to be the result of a unique and extremely successful combination of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and hard-nosed empiricism. This book demonstrates that the well-known interdisciplinary and empirical agenda of the Bloomington Research Program is the result of a less-known but very bold proposition: an attempt to revitalize and extend into the new millennium a traditional mode of analysis illustrated by authors like Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Adam... Less

This innovative book offers a critical perspective on the state of the current global economy, making sense of knowledge related issues by critically assessing existing institutional choices, as well as pointing to new ways forward. The pioneering chapters reposition knowledge in a number of economic debates including regional development, property rights, social enterprises, corporate governance, the management of universities, and the role of creative activities. They explore the possibility of an institutional dynamism that impacts not only on the characteristics of localities and their place in a hierarchical and ordered system of relationships, but on the nature of the system itself. Conclusions point at the individual and collective dimensions of the knowledge discovery process,... Less

The Reader analyses the changes which have taken place in the economies of the countries of the Caribbean since political independence from the 1960s onwards. It also describes how the Caribbean economy works and examines whether it can deliver imported standards of living for Caribbean people. To fully understand the dynamics of the present-day Caribbean economy, the analysis is given a historical perspective with a discussion of developments starting from the post World War Two period, which represented a turning point for much of the world’s economy. The selections in the first section of the book may be described as ‘The Classics’ providing a historical overview and featuring some of the seminal works on the fundamentals of the Caribbean economy by W. Arthur Lewis, Lloyd Best,... Less

Oil exporting developing countries have the common problem of how best to transform their valuable but nonrenewable oil reserves into a permanent flow of income for achieving their long term development objectives. The most fundamental dynamic choices of these economies can be summarized in three basic questions: i) how much to extract, ii) how much to invest, and iii) where to invest. In other words, a sustainable development path in the case of these economies involves the optimal depletion of their exhaustible resource, allocation of revenues generated by the resource, and the optimal composition of their investment funds. This study presents a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore issues related to economic development in these resource dependent economies by... Less

Following his The World Economy: a Millennial Perspective, Angus Maddison here offers a rare insight into the history and political influence of national accounts and national accounting.  He demonstrates that such statistical data can shed light on the analysis of economic phenomena such as growth, market formation and income distribution.  Th is approach is particularly interesting for developing countries often lacking the expertise or data to produce good national accounts.  It also serves as a reminder for OECD countries that effective policy making depends on verifiable economic data. This book includes tables showing Maddison's estimates for the world and its major regions from as early as the year 1000. It is intended as a research guide for future comparisons of economic... Less

Local economies are the building blocks for national ones. An updated and expansive core text, the Second Edition of Local Economic Development: Analysis, Practices, and Globalization provides a comprehensive introduction to the economics of local economic development. Delving into cutting-edge topics such as cluster analysis, creative class orientation, competitive advantage, social capital, business expansion and retention, and learning regions, this clearly written interdisciplinary text connects theories with real-life examples and offers the reader pragmatic tools for future application, including a valuable “how-to” understanding regarding important qualitative tools and their interpretation. Importantly, this text is uniquely accessible to students who lack a background in the... Less

Bringing the analysis of Brazil's economic performance up to date, Baer's classic text remains the only book in English to provide a thorough historical, statistical, and institutional description of the Brazilian economy. After touching on such issues as Brazil's exporting economy prior to the 1930s, the impact of external shocks, and the historical struggle to bring inflation under control, the book turns to contemporary issues. The changing nature of Brazil's international trading and investment links, the past role of state enterprises and the process of privatization, the agricultural sector, environmental issues, and the economics of the health delivery system are thoroughly examined. Offering a full statistical and institutional description of Brazil's economy, this book includes a... Less

Public economics studies how government taxing and spending activities affect the economy-- economic efficiency and the distribution of income and wealth. This comprehensive text in public economics covers the core topics market failure and taxation as well as recent developments in the political economy and public choice literatures. It is unique not only in its broad scope but in its balance between public finance and public choice and its combination of theory and relevant empirical evidence.After introducing the theory and methodology of public economics and reviewing the efficiency of the competitive equilibrium, the book presents a ... Less

Millions of Africans spend their entire lives poor, hungry, and malnourished, and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, either directly or indirectly. Despite its potential to drive economic growth and poverty reduction, however, African agricultural development has remained disappointing- whether because of underinvestment or poor returns to investments. This book, Institutional Economics Perspectives on African Agricultural Development, is inspired by the conviction that effective African agricultural development requires building better institutions. It provides an accessible synthesis of new institutional economics theory and research into understanding and improving African agriculture, particularly smallholder agriculture. Interspersing theory with case studies from a... Less

One of the key issues for the prosperity of our societies in a globalised economy is to connect public policies together to achieve maximum results. Policy-makers and practitioners in key public and private agencies need to learn how to collaborate, to create joint-decision processes, to evaluate the effects of new governance partnerships and to become more efficient in the use of engagement tools. This book develops a conceptual map for this new area of practice and provides leading cases from different OECD countries to help practitioners plan for this form of innovation.

Ha-Joon Chang evaluates the role of the state in economics and development. In this collection of essays, he reviews theories and practices of state intervention as they have developed over two centuries of modern capitalism. He develops an institutionalist approach to the role of the state in economic change, and examines the issues involved in particular settings including industrial policy, trade policy, intellectual property rights, regulation, and strategies towards transnational corporations. He mounts a sophisticated theoretical and historical case for the continuing essential and constructive roles which the state can and must play in economic development.

In recent years the metaphor of economy has proved to have an immense explanatory power in literary and cultural criticism. Everything can be expressed and analysed in terms borrowed from political economy. Language, texts, social structures, and cultural relationships can be construed in the dynamic terms made available by the metaphor of economy, and, more specifically, the economy of the metaphor. The metaphor of economy allows to show the dynamic processes of exchange, circulation and interested negotiation. The essays in this volume display approaches to cultural and discursive practices derived from the methods and texts of economics. They provide a body of literary and cultural criticism founded upon economic paradigms, which makes apparent the genealogy of our economic thought and... Less

Richard Cantillon is one of the key figures in the early history of economics. He was certainly not the first to think about economic problems, but he was the first to have clear insight into the way the economy functions as a system. He was arguably the first to structure a theory of how the economy works. In this sense he could be called the first real economist. Today, his ideas on population, determination of prices, wages and interest, the role of the entrepreneur, banking, and the influence of money supply on the economy are increasingly quoted and appreciated. This is a translation of the Éssai sur la nature du commerce en général his only surviving work. It was circulated in manuscript form for many years after his death and was extremely influential, albeit not well known, at... Less

This book is a collection of essays that identify and analyze a new phase in thinking about the role of law in economic development and in the practices of development agencies that support law reform. The authors trace the history of theory and doctrine in this field, relating it to changing ideas about development and its institutional practices. The essays describe a new phase in thinking about the relation between law and economic development and analyze how this rising consensus differs from previous efforts to use law as an instrument to achieve social and economic progress. In analyzing the current phase, these essays also identify tensions and contradictions in current practice. This work is the first comprehensive treatment of this emerging paradigm, situating it within the... Less

This book seeks to elucidate its subject - the governing of democratic state - by making intelligible the party politics of democracies. Downs treats this differently than do other students of politics. His explanations are systematically related to, and deductible from, precisely stated assumptions about the motivations that attend the decisions of voters and parties and the environment in which they act. He is consciously concerned with the economy in explanation, that is, with attempting to account for phenomena in terms of a very limited number of facts and postulates. He is concerned also with the central features of party politics in any democratic state, not with that in the United State or any other single country. I. BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE MODEL. 1. Introduction. 2. Party... Less

Free Worldwide Delivery : Economic Development : Paperback : Pearson Education Limited : 9781408284476 : 1408284472 : 23 Sep 2011 : Economic Development, presents the latest thinking in economic development with the clear and comprehensive approach that has been so well received in previous editions.

Policy debates are often grounded within the conceptual confines of a state-market dichotomy, as though the two existed in complete isolation. In this innovative text, Marc Allen Eisner portrays the state and the market as inextricably linked, exploring the variety of institutions subsumed by the market and the role that the state plays in creating the institutional foundations of economic activity. Through a historical approach, Eisner situates the study of American political economy within a larger evolutionary- institutional framework that integrates perspectives in American political development and economic sociology. This volume provides a rich understanding of the complexity of U.S. economic policy, explaining how public policies become embedded in bureaucracy and reinforced by... Less

This book of essays is a collective treatment of the problem of the impact of war on economic development in Europe. This subject has been neglected despite the fact that the issues it raises are of direct concern to students of military history, the history of science and technology, the history of education, historical demography, as well as to students of political, social and economic history. The contributors to this volume have drawn on work done in all these fields. Taken together, this study provides the foundation for further comparative work on the effect of war and warfare on economic life. The contributors have approached the problem from two sides. The subject of a number of essays is the 'internal history' of armed conflict. These focus on war itself and discuss the... Less

Virtually all industrialized nations have annual per capita incomes greater than $15,000; meanwhile, over three billion people, more than half the worlds population, live in countries with per capita incomes of less than $700. Development economics studies the economies of such countries and the problems they face, including poverty, chronic underemployment, low wages, rampant inflation, and oppressive international debt. In the past two decades, the international debt crisis, the rise of endogenous growth theory, and the tremendous success of some Asian economies have generated renewed interest in development economics, and the field has grown... Less