Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

[Review Of The Book Employment And Development: A New Review Of Evidence, By David Turnham], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] I first encountered David Turnham’s work after majoring in labor economics in undergraduate and graduate school and spending a year in Nairobi studying and modeling the labor market there. The atmosphere in Kenya was crackling with intellectual excitement: John Harris and Michael Todaro had just showed how the solution to urban unemployment might be rural development, George Johnson had demonstrated that earnings function analysis ‘worked’ despite doubts about the quality of developing country data and the applicability of developed country concepts, Dharam Ghai was developing the basic human needs approach to development, and Joe Stiglitz was formulating efficiency wage …

Malaysian Development Planning, David Lim

Prof. David Lim

Development planning has been described as "a deliberate governmental attempt to coordinate economic decision-making over the long-run and to influence, direct and, in some cases, even control the level and growth of a nation's principal economic variables (income, comsumption, employment, investment, saving, exports, imports, etc.) in order to achieve a pre-determined set of development objectives." One set of reasons for planning centres round the operation of the market system. Thus, market prices are often distorted and can result in a misallocation of scarce resources. Another set revolves round the need to have a rallying point for local and foreign interests …

Explaining The Growth Performances Of Asian Developing Economies, David Lim

Prof. David Lim

No matter how it is measured, the growth performance of the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) stands out. That of the Southeast Asian group, with the exception of the Philippines, and that of China is also impressive. The South Asian countries have done much less well, with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America even further behind...

East Malaysia In Malaysian Development Planning, David Lim

Prof. David Lim

Malaysia consists of Peninsular Malaysia and the two East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. Development planning in Peninsular Malaysia began as early as 1950, while the first plan for the whole of the Malaysian federation founded in 1963 was published in 1966. Have the two East Malaysian states been integrated properly into the various Malaysian plans? Or have they, with their somewhat different economic, political and social backgrounds, been treated as a nuisance element and appeared in the plans only as an afterthought? In any case, is the planning experience of Peninsular Malaysia relevant for solving the problems of …

Employment, Income Distribution And Economic Growth In Seven Small Open Economies, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Resurgent interest has been manifested among development economists in trickle-down, i.e., the view that the more rapid the rate of economic growth, the more rapid the improvement in employment and income distribution. Throughout this paper, the term ‘income distribution’ will refer to the location and dispersion of the pattern of incomes, i.e., to ‘absolute incomes and poverty’ and to ‘relative income inequality’. Empirical evidence supports trickle-down in some cases, but the evidence is contrary to trickle-down in others.

These data indicate:

1. A high rate of economic growth is neither necessary nor sufficient for inequality to decline.
2. A high rate …

Income Distribution And Economic Growth, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Who benefits how much from economic growth and why? This question is fundamental to today’s development economics. This chapter reviews some of the major lessons learned and major directions for future research in the study of income distribution and economic development.

Aid, Growth And Jobs, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Various development objectives are worthy, but one objective merits special attention: reducing the scourge of absolute economic misery in the world. This study focuses on an important but relatively underemphasized approach to poverty reduction: helping the poor earn more in the labour market for the work they do, so that they can buy the goods and services they need to move up out of poverty. The core of the study is divided into three sections: defining the global poverty challenge and the world’s employment problem, presenting policy options for improving employment outcomes for the poor, and suggesting ways of choosing …

Macroconstants Of Development: A New Benchmark For The Strategic Development Of Advanced Countries And Firms, Andrey Bystrov, Vyacheslav Yusim, Tamilla Curtis

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

This research proposed a new indicator of countries’ development called “macroconstants of development”. The literature review indicates that the concept of "macroconstants of development" is not used at the moment in neither the theory nor the practice of industrial policy. Research of longitudinal data of total GDP, GDP per capita and their derivatives for most countries of the world was conducted. An analysis of statistical information has been done by employing econometric analyses.

Based on the analysis of the statistical data, which characterizes the development of large, technologically advanced countries in ordinary conditions, it was identified that the average acceleration …

Decomposing Ldc Inequality, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] At the present time, there is great interest among development economists in the problem of economic inequality in less developed countries (LDCs). Studies of the determinants of inequality follow either of two general approaches. The more traditional approach is associated with names like Kuznets (1963), Chenery and associates (1960, 1968, 1975), Adelman and Morris (1973), Ahluwalia (1976) and Chiswick (1971). These studies share a common methodology, consisting basically of looking at a cross-section of countries, and (1) measuring the degree of inequality in each, (2) measuring other characteristics of each country (e.g., level of GNP, its rate of growth, …

Private Returns And Social Equity In The Financing Of Higher Education, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] A widespread phenomenon in developing countries has been the rapid growth of schools and institutions of higher learning resulting in a so-called ‘education explosion’. One possible explanation for the education explosion is that education is a profitable personal investment, as evidenced by high private rates of return. The high private returns are translated into demands on politicians for additional schooling spaces. To gain or maintain public favour, each politician uses his influence to try to increase the number of schools in his constituency. By this chain of events, growth of educational systems might be anticipated as long as private …

Changes In Poverty And Inequality In Developing Countries, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

This paper presents new data on poverty, inequality, and growth in those developing countries of the world for which the requisite statistics are available. Economic growth is found generally but not always to reduce poverty. Growth, however, is found to have very little to do with income inequality. Thus the "economic laws" linking the rate of growth and the distribution of benefits receive only very tenuous empirical support here.

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

Economies In Transition And In Development: A Possible Warning From Adam Smith, Maria Paganelli

Maria Pia Paganelli

Adam Smith was concerned with the nature and causes of economic growth and development. One may therefore ask if it is possible to use his work, even if only as speculation, in order to gather useful insights about today’s developing or transitional economies. With all the due caveats, this paper asks: if Adam Smith were alive today, what would he say about transitioning and developing economies? Testing whether Adam Smith would be correct in his analysis, I leave to other work.

App Newsletter 3, Riccardo Pelizzo

Riccardo Pelizzo

third issue of the APP newsletter where we discuss the results of the Nigerian elections, the consequences of falling oil price, and the costs of instability

Identification Of Key Productive Sectors In The Mexican Economy, Isaac Sánchez-Juárez, David Revilla, Adelaido García-Andrés

Isaac Sánchez-Juárez

This article focuses on identifying what are the key sectors with high potential for drag induced investment in the Mexican economy, also characterizes the sectors according to their hierarchy, impact and degree of articulation. To achieve this the input-output matrix national 2003 was used (disaggregated into 20 sectors and 79 sub-sectors), provided by the official government agency responsible for generating statistical information, which applied the traditional method of calculation of multipliers which takes into account both relations hierarchical such as circular between the productive sectors of Rasmussen (1956). The originality of the work lies in the application of the social …

Tourism, Development, And Inequality: The Case Of Tanzania, Abel A. Kinyondo, Riccardo Pelizzo

Abel Alfred Kinyondo

For most of the post-WWII era, scholars have attempted to understand, define, and measure development. A large and growing body of work has in fact investigated its causes and the consequences and has dissented as to whether tourism represents a proper determinant of growth and development. Yet, while scholars have started investigating the contribution that tourism can make to economic growth and development from the 1970s onward, considerably less attention has been paid to assessing whether tourism-induced growth is pro-poor or not—that is, whether tourism-induced growth and development contribute to the reduction of poverty and income inequality. Building on data …

The Political Economy Of Export Restrictions: The Case Of Vietnam And India, Kathy Baylis, Murray E. Fulton, Travis Reynolds

Kathy Baylis

No abstract provided.

Do Peer Effects Influence The Household Bargain? Evidence From Children's Food Consumption In India, Eeshani Kandpal, Kathy Baylis

Kathy Baylis

This paper uses primary data on women's social networks to estimate causal peer effects in the household bargain. Using an extension of a spatial weighting technique that relies of friends-of-friends to identify peer effects, we examine how a woman's friend's participation in an education program affects her physical mobility, access to outside employment, and probability of working outside the household, as well as her children's food consumption. Results show that peer effects have a significant impact on all proxies of female bargaining power. We decompose the overall peer effects into those on participants and non-participants, and focus on the effects …

The Cost Of Conscience: Quantifying Our Charitable Burden In An Era Of Globalization, Frank A. Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Development economists have long debated the proper targets for foreign aid contributions from wealthy countries. Philosophers like Peter Singer and Peter Unger now suggest that these countries' citizens have a parallel moral responsibility to tithe a portion of their income directly for the relief of the suffering of the poorest. These thinkers would prefer a systematic global redistribution of income - some public mechanism for accomplishing worldwide what the tax systems of egalitarian social democratic states accomplish. But they all realize that such global governance is unlikely to come about in any of our lifetimes. So they turn their attention …

(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

We ask which economic policies can help a country create the most favourable conditions for development. We observe that the dynamics of several development indicators can be grouped into four clusters, each cluster corresponding to a different combination of growth and changes in inequality. Based on this observation, we define four different development scenarios and use limited dependent variable regressions to study how structural and policy factors affect a country’s probability to achieve the most (or the least) favourable of these scenarios. Our results point to a comforting picture: through the choice of appropriate policies countries can effectively increase their …

The Shadows Behind The Law: An Overview Of The Legal System In Ghana, Prince Opoku Agyemang

Prince Opoku Agyemang

The Evolution Of Poverty And Inequality In Sub-Saharan Africa Over The Period 1980-2010: What Do We (And Can We) Know Given The Data Available?, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Morten Jerven's 'Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled By African Development Statistics And What To Do About It', Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Book review of Morten Jerven’s Poor Numbers. How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It, Cornell Studies in Political Economy, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, January 2013, ISBN: 9780801478604, 176 pp.

Beyond Deterrence And Decline Towards A General Understanding Of Peace Economics, Raul Caruso

Raul Caruso

The aim of this short article is to provide elements for a general discussion on peace economics and its potential contribution to economics and economic policy. I first present a discussion on deterrence equilibria and consequent allocation of resources. Eventually I expound five economic channels through which military expenditures turn to be detrimental for economic development. Finally some elements to build a framework for a peaceful economic policy are presented.

Effects Of Export Restrictions On Domestic Market Efficiency: The Case Of India’S Rice And Wheat Export Ban, Kathy Baylis, Maria Christina Jolejole-Foreman, Mindy Mallory

Kathy Baylis

The use of export restrictions has substantially increased in recent years. While a number of papers show how these restrictions have increased world commodity prices, in this paper, we empirically estimate how one country’s export restrictions affected the efficiency of their domestic market. We use a threshold cointegration model to estimate the integration between selected wheat and rice markets in India before and during the export bans and test whether those bans exacerbated the price effects of domestic production shocks. We find that before the ban, the majority of port markets for rice and wheat are integrated with the world …

Desarrollo Y Acceso A Telecomunicaciones, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

No abstract provided.

Benchmarking Structural Transformation Across The World, Era Dabla-Norris, Alun H. Thomas, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu, Yingyuan Chen

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Presentation given at the IMF's Jobs and Growth Seminar on December 13, 2013, based on the IMF Working Paper No. 13/176 with the same name

La Croissance Élevée Récente De L’Afrique Subsaharienne Est-Elle Soutenable?, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

No abstract provided.

The Cost Of Conscience: Quantifying Our Charitable Burden In An Era Of Globalization, Frank A. Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Development economists have long debated the proper targets for foreign aid contributions from wealthy countries. Philosophers like Peter Singer and Peter Unger now suggest that these countries' citizens have a parallel moral responsibility to tithe a portion of their income directly for the relief of the suffering of the poorest. These thinkers would prefer a systematic global redistribution of income - some public mechanism for accomplishing worldwide what the tax systems of egalitarian social democratic states accomplish. But they all realize that such global governance is unlikely to come about in any of our lifetimes. So they turn their attention …

Wage Floors And Economic Development, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] I shall refer to minimum wages and other wage-increasing institutions collectively as "wage floors." Throughout the paper, they are assumed to be set in real terms, therefore not be eroded by inflation or devaluation. These wage floors typically are sector-specific: unions are stronger in some firms and industries than in others, minimum wage laws apply to some establishments and localities but not to others and are enforced with different degrees of diligence, and so on. As a stylized version of the differential applicability of wage floors, economists from such disparate fields as development economics, labor economics, and international trade …