The Political Dimension Of Economic Growth

The state and its institutions are crucial for economic development: for better and for worse. This insight informs this important, up-to-date and authoritative survey of new trends in growth economics and the widely divergent economic performance of developing countries - for example, between Latin America and South-east Asia - which seemed to be similarly placed just a generation ago. The decisive role of the political dimension in economic growth seems clear but there are many challenges to be met in getting an analytical handle on the precise determinants and in testing empirically for this. This is the challenge taken up by the international team of contributors.

A non-profit organization with purely scientific aims, the International Economic Association (IEA) was founded in 1950. It is a federation of some sixty national economic associations in all parts of the world. Its basic purpose is the development of economics as an intellectual discipline, recognizing a diversity of problems, systems and values in the world and taking notice of methodological diversities.

We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence millions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, and in which complex social forces intersect across continents. This is globalization. In the fifth edition of his bestselling Very Short Introduction Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing. From climate change to the Ebola virus, Donald Trump to Twitter, trade wars to China's growing global profile, Steger explores today's unprecedented levels of planetary integration as well as the recent challenges posed by resurgent national populism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Walter W. Heller was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers throughout President Kennedy's Administration and during the first year of President Johnson's. Here, in a book of immediate importance and great vision, he examines the profound and rapid changes that are taking place during the 1960's in American economic policy. In this decade economics has come of age, and the Keynesian revolution has been completed. The economic health and stability of the nation are now among the President's major concerns. The need to formulate policy in this area has thrust the political economist into a new and leading role as Presidential adviser, and Mr. Heller is in a unique position to offer an inside account of these developments. In his first book since leaving Washington to return to the University of Minnesota, he describes the emergence of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson as practicing economists, evaluates their economic policies, and sketches the patterns that are being established for the future. He tells how the grip of economic myths and false fears has been loosened in the government, with the result that economic policy is focused on sustaining prosperity without inflation, on speeding economic growth, and on realizing the fruits of true fiscal abundance. Finally, Mr. Heller for the first time discusses in detail his own plan for revenue sharing, a new method of enlarging the flow of Federal funds to the states. The plan offers the exciting promise of a stronger fiscal base for our federalism, not only by expanding the present system of Federal grants, but also--when the demands of Vietnam relent--by developing new forms of fiscal support for state and local government. Parts of this book were delivered by Mr. Keller as the Godkin Lectures at Harvard University in March 1966.

Bsrd A. Andreassen is Professor at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights and Director of Research (human rights and development) at the Law Faculty, University of Oslo. --

This book explores how economics can be based around studies on human behaviour, rather than relying on overly simplified assumptions generated from mathematical modelling. Through examining the link between human economic activity and psychology, specifically regarding the development of cognitive and non-cognitive ability, insight into the human dimensions of economic development and the sources of human inequality are provided. This book aims to question assumptions of rationality utilised in neoclassical economic theory and suggest how economic activity can be better understood through a deeper recognition of human behaviour. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in the political economy and behavioural economics.

This volume on evolutionary approaches to economic development and growth is a member of a family of special volumes that Springer has published on Evolu tionary Economics recently. The present volume has excellent predecessors. There is a special volume on "Evolution in Markets and Institutions", edited by Ulrich Witt, and another on "Evolutionary and Neoclassical Perspectives on Market Structure and Economic Growth", edited by Yannis Katsoulacos. And there are more in the pipeline. The volumes already published reflect the broad ranging interests of evolu tionary economists, and within the scope delineated they are devoted to major research areas of the discipline. The editorial intention behind the venture of special volumes has been to bundle together some of the research areas in order to sharpen the problem focus and to generate research synergies within major research fields. We may, somewhat obviously, define a research field by its research topics. For the present purpose however, we may wish to conceive the research conducted by evolutionary economists as belonging to either a research area that is inspired in its problem perspective by neoclassical economics or to one that is not. The very success of the critique of the neoclassical paradigm relied on a preoccupation with its research scope and questions. Evolutionary econom ics has scored marvelously in challenging major neoclassical stands, and neoclassical economics may never be quite the same in the future.