'This volume not only offers an invaluable retrospective of the World Bank's best thinking on development but also has the analytical caliber and policy insights to become an indispensable source for those dealing with the present and future growth and equity challenges faced by the developing countries.' -- Ernesto Zedillo

This book reflects on current thinking in development economics and on what may happen over the next two decades. As well as studying development economics in retrospect, the volume explores the current debates and challenges and looks forward at the problems that affect the global capacity to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The study of economic development is one of the newest, most exciting, and most challenging branches of the broader discipline of economics and political economy. Although one could claim that Adam Smith was the first "development economist", the systematic study of the problems and processes of economic development in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has emerged only over the past five decades. This biography of the subject of economic development will focus on the essential ideas in the evolution of development thought and policy over the subject's half-century of life. In concise form and avoiding undue technicality, it highlights the influence of development theory on policymaking and on the mixed record of successes and failures in promoting development efforts. The interpretation of theory, policy, and the lessons of experience are covered in three periods: early development economics of the 1950s-60s; orthodox reaction of the 1970s-80s; and the new development economics of the 1980s-90s. Gerald Meier-one of the world's most prominent leading thinkers in the economics of development - interprets the past treatment of development problems with the present and future in mind. He re-interprets the past two generations of development economists in a contemporary voice. And in a forward-looking fashion, the book's perspectives should make the next generation of development problems-and development economists-more intelligible. The reader is invited to consider whether development economists really know how to put matters right.

This Handbook responds to the needs and aspirations of current and future generations of development economists by providing critical reference material alongside or in relation to mainstream propositions. Despite the potential of globalisation in accelerating growth and development in low and middle-income countries through the spread of technology, knowledge and information, its current practice in many parts of the world has led to processes that are socially, economically and politically and ecologically unsustainable. It is critical for development economists to engage with the pivotal question of how to change the nature and course of globalisation to make it work for inclusive and sustainable development. Applying a critical and pluralistic approach, the chapters in this Handbook examine economics of development paths under globalisation, focusing on sustainable development in social, environmental, institutional and political economy dimensions. It aims at advancing the frontier of development economics in these key aspects and generating more refined policy perspectives. It is critically reflective in examining effects of globalisation on development paths to date, and in terms of methodological and analytical approaches, as well as forward-thinking in policy perspectives with a view to laying a foundation for sustainable development.

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

This textbook provides a comprehensive, systematic treatise on development economics, combining classical political economy, modern institutional theory, and current development issues. Grown out of twenty years' experience of teaching in the United States and Japan, its treatment is global, although the organizing principle is the East Asian development experience. Taking a comparative institutional analysis approach, it also outlines quantitative characteristics of Third World development in terms of population growth, natural resource depletion, capital accumulation, and technological change. Development Economics addresses one major question: Why has a small set of countries achieved a high level of affluence while the majority remain poor and stagnant? One obvious factor is a the ability to adopt and develop advanced technology, due in large measure to the difficulty experienced by low-income economies in preparing appropriate institutions for borrowing advanced technology given their social and cultural constraints. This volume explores the nature of these constraints, with the aim of identifying the means to remove them, and examines countries where the constraints have been successfully lifted—-most notably Japan and East Asian NIEs. This fully revised and updated third edition also incorporates analyses of several recent changes and newly emerged problems relevant to the global economy: recurrent economic crises in Latin America contrasted with the recovery of East Asia from the 1997-8 financial crisis; a paradigm change in international development assistance from 'the Washington Consensus' to the 'the Post-Washington Consensus', with a major shift in its focus from economic growth to poverty reduction as manifested in the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals; and the stalemate in international collaboration on the environment as represented by delays in the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. In exploring these issues, Development Economics provides important lessons on what institutions can promote economic growth, reduce poverty, and conserve the environment through the borrowing of technology.

Poverty still persists in today’s low-income countries despite decades of international aid, and extensive research on the determinants of growth and development. The book argues that meeting this challenge requires a holistic understanding of the context-specific factors that influence economic behavior and structures in poor countries. Contextual Development Economics approaches this task by offering a methodology that allows analysing the dynamic interrelations between economic, cultural and historical determinants of economic life in low-income countries. The book starts with an empirical inquiry into the economic characteristics of low-income countries that create the context by which the specific forms of organising economic activity in these countries are determined. It then looks at how different generations of development economists sought to explain economic realities in low-income countries from the 1940s through today. The book finally synthesises the results from this empirical and methodological analysis with insights from an inquiry into contributions of the German Historical School, from which it borrows the concept of the economic style as a methodological alternative to the universal and hence often irrelevant models of mainstream development economics. This book offers a promising perspective for the future of development economics that will be of interest to researchers and development practitioners alike. It will also be relevant for academics and students with an interest in applications of the method and concepts of the Historical School to contemporary problems.