The Macroeconomics Of Development And Poverty Reduction

To reach the "Millennium Development Goal" of halving poverty by 2015 in developing countries requires first and foremost higher economic growth. This can hardly succeed when policies continue to adhere to the traditional neo-liberal strategies of the "Washington Consensus". In this study, different growth and stagnation "regimes" are explored. To enter a growth path, more emphasis has to be put on prudent macroeconomic policies striving for sound money, less external debt, balance of payment equilibrium, containment of dollarisation, more stable exchange rates and on deepening the domestic financial sector. Fostering capital accumulation is more important than perfecting the competitive allocation of resources through pervasive liberalisation. The economic performance of most East and South Asian countries which did not follow the strategy of the "Washington Consensus" contrasts sharply with a stagnation trend in Africa and Latin America in the last decades. Country case studies on China, Vietnam, Belarus and Uganda are presented. The analysis follows a modern Keynesian line of thought.

Explores the various ways in which the institutions of the global economy might rise to the challenges posed by the twin goals of increasing the pace of global development and alleviating poverty. This book also provides a much-needed analysis of the successes and failures of international institutions in achieving these aims.

Provides an understanding of economic policies for poverty reduction in developing countries. The policy areas include the various roles of government in ensuring the effective operation of a market economy, conducting fiscal policy, and influencing the money supply, exchange rates, and the financial sector.

This book looks at developmental pathways to poverty reduction that emphasize employment-centred structural change, social policies that both protect citizens and contribute to economic development, and types of politics that support economic transformation and participation of the poor in growth processes.

This book focuses on the provision of basic social services - in particular, access to education, health and water supplies - as the central building blocks of any human development strategy. The authors concentrate on how these basic social services can be financed and delivered more effectively to achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. Their analysis, which departs from the dominant macro-economic paradigm, deploys the results of broad-ranging research they led at UNICEF and UNDP, investigating the record on basic social services of some 30 developing countries. In seeking to learn from these new data, they develop an analytical argument around two potential synergies: at the macro level, between poverty reduction, human development and economic growth, and at the micro level, between interventions to provide basic social services. Policymakers, they argue, can integrate macro-economic and social policy. Fiscal, monetary, and other macro-economic policies can be compatible with social sector requirements. They make the case that policymakers have more flexibility than is usually presented by orthodox writers and international financial institutions, and that if policymakers engaged in alternative macro-economic and growth-oriented policies, this could lead to the expansion of human capabilities and the fulfillment of human rights. This book explores some of these policy options. The book also argues that more than just additional aid is needed. Specific strategic shifts in the areas of aid policy, decentralized governance, health and education policy and the private-public mix in service provision are a prerequisite to achieve the goals of human development. The combination of governance reforms and fiscal and macro-economic policies outlined in this book can eliminate human poverty in the span of a generation.

The relationship between growth, inequality, and poverty lies at the heart of development economics. This volume draws together many of the most important recent contributions to the controversies surrounding this topic. Some of the chapters help explain why there is profound disagreement on crucial issues of growth, poverty and inequality within academic circles, and among organizations and various groups active in the development field. Another central theme is the cross-country evidence on the relationship between growth and poverty, and the extent to which it is valid to draw policy conclusions from this empirical evidence. The volume also shows how new microeconomic techniques such as poverty maps and microsimulation models can be used to improve poverty analysis and the design of pro-poor policies. The overall conclusion points to the need for diverse strategies towards growth and poverty, rather than simple blanket policy rules. Initial conditions, specific country structures, and time horizons all play a significant role. Initial conditions affect the speed with which growth reduces poverty and can also determine whether policies such as trade liberalization have a pro-poor or an anti-poor outcome. Improved education is valuable in itself, and also contributes to poverty reduction; but its effect on inequality depends on supply and demand factors, which differ significantly across countries. Likewise, the quantitative impact on poverty of redistribution from the rich to the poor vis-à-vis an increase in total national income can vary greatly across countries. Hence the need for creative approaches to poverty which take full account of the specific circumstances of individual nations and which assign a central role to inequality analysis in the discussion of poverty-alleviation policies.

Adopted in 2001, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) represents a new vision to place African countries on a path toward poverty reduction, sustainable growth, and full integration in the world economy. This conference volume includes papers selected from a high-level seminar in December 2002 held in Dakar, Senegal, organized by the IMF Institute in the context of the program of the Joint Africa Institute (JAI). The papers focus on the challenges confronting NEPAD in reducing poverty, promoting trade, attracting capital flows, and effecting institutional reforms.

In this volume, world-renowned contributors, including Martin Ravallion, Michael Kremer and Robert Townsend, deal with the institutional characteristics of poverty resulting from the time pattern of aid, the nature of financial systems and the political economy of budgetary decisions. Going beyond the traditional literature on poverty, this original book deals with themes of broad interest to both scholars and policymakers in a clear yet technically sophisticated manner. Departing from conventional methods employed in poverty studies, these innovative essays enquire into the institutional characteristics of poverty, and using current case studies, they examine the crucial idea that periods of crises seriously affect poverty.