Rethinking Development Economics

This title represents the most forward thinking and comprehensive review of development economics currently available.

Presents the contributions that early development theory can make to growth economics in answering why some countries are richer than others and why some economies grow faster than others.

This book provides an innovative framework to analyze the process of industrial upgrading and diversification, a key feature of economic development. Based on this framework, it provides concrete advice to development practitioners and policy makers on how to unleash a country's growth potential.

This book presents, or rather “re-presents”, the intricacies of a developing economy in the light of recent theoretical developments in economics while also providing a fresh perspective on the perceived inadequacies of the discipline in addressing the discontents of the contemporary global economic order. The book argues that there is scope for economics to be a more humane discipline and more relevant to contemporary economic problems by embracing new ideas, including those from other disciplines. It attempts to show how economic concepts and theories can be contextualised to help better understand real-life economic phenomena; how to rethink the ways in which the market economy can address the moral issues of human wellbeing and social justice; and, overall, how the study of economics and public discourses on economic issues can be made more engaging as well as more relevant to the problems of developing countries. Based on public lectures given by the author in Dhaka, and using illustrations from Bangladesh, India and other countries, the book offers an authoritative understanding of diverse economic realities by taking a fresh look at the familiar. Comprehensive and accessible, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of economics, development economics and policy, sociology and business studies as well as to journalists, public intellectuals and policymakers in developing countries.

The study of development in low-income countries is attracting more attention around the world than ever before. Yet until now there has been no comprehensive text that incorporates the huge strides made in the subject over the past decade. Development Economics does precisely that in a clear, rigorous, and elegant fashion. Debraj Ray, one of the most accomplished theorists in development economics today, presents in this book a synthesis of recent and older literature in the field and raises important questions that will help to set the agenda for future research. He covers such vital subjects as theories of economic growth, economic inequality, poverty and undernutrition, population growth, trade policy, and the markets for land, labor, and credit. A common point of view underlies the treatment of these subjects: that much of the development process can be understood by studying factors that impede the efficient and equitable functioning of markets. Diverse topics such as the new growth theory, moral hazard in land contracts, information-based theories of credit markets, and the macroeconomic implications of economic inequality come under this common methodological umbrella. The book takes the position that there is no single cause for economic progress, but that a combination of factors--among them the improvement of physical and human capital, the reduction of inequality, and institutions that enable the background flow of information essential to market performance--consistently favor development. Ray supports his arguments throughout with examples from around the world. The book assumes a knowledge of only introductory economics and explains sophisticated concepts in simple, direct language, keeping the use of mathematics to a minimum. Development Economics will be the definitive textbook in this subject for years to come. It will prove useful to researchers by showing intriguing connections among a wide variety of subjects that are rarely discussed together in the same book. And it will be an important resource for policy-makers, who increasingly find themselves dealing with complex issues of growth, inequality, poverty, and social welfare.

In 2008, the weight of developing and emerging economies in the global economy tipped over the 50% mark for the first time. Since then, Perspectives on Global Development has been tracking the shift in global wealth and its impact on developing countries. How much longer can the dividends of ...

The winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics upend the most common assumptions about how economics works in this gripping and disruptive portrait of how poor people actually live. Why do the poor borrow to save? Why do they miss out on free life-saving immunizations, but pay for unnecessary drugs? In Poor Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two award-winning MIT professors, answer these questions based on years of field research from around the world. Called "marvelous, rewarding" by the Wall Street Journal, the book offers a radical rethinking of the economics of poverty and an intimate view of life on 99 cents a day. Poor Economics shows that creating a world without poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.

Gerard Roland's new text, Development Economics, is the first undergraduate text to recognize the role of institutions in understanding development and growth. Through a series of chapters devoted to specific sets of institutions, Roland examines the effects of institutions on growth, property rights, market development, and the delivery of public goods and services and focuses. With the most comprehensive and up to date treatment of institutions on development, Roland explores the important questions of why some countries develop faster than others and why some fail while others are successful.