This book provides the theoretical and analytical background necessary to understanding the process of growth and the implementation of economic policies. First, it presents the growth theory landscape and the evolution of growth as well as modern growth theory arguments where the policy implications of the theoretical approaches are set. The book then covers the relationship between policy and growth, discussing not only the growth prototypes that prevail but also their relation to politics and economic policy formation and decision making. In this context, policy formation determinants, as well as the targets, instruments, and policy implementations, are crucial. The role of structural changes and structural reforms and their relationship with economic growth is also analyzed. The book ends with an interdisciplinary study of how institutions and cultural background, entrepreneurship and innovation affect policy formation.

A History of American State and Local Economic Development presents the history of American local and state economic development from 1790 to 2000. This multi-variable, multi-disciplinary history employs a bottom-up policy-making systems approach through three eras of American state and local economic development. The history offers insight into why the practice and profession evolved as it has and comments on its present day complexity. It stresses mainstream economic and community development as an output of jurisdictional policy systems driven by political culture and three key forces of change-industry/sector profit cycle, population mobility and three competitive urban hierarchies-which continue to impact policy-making. With several chapters on each major US region, this book observes two macro political cultures, Privatism and Progressivism, that have persisted since the Early Republic and have inspired two often conflicting approaches to confront urban growth and decline. This history of American state and local economic development will be of main interest to the academic community and economic development professionals, particularly those in political science, public policy, history, economics, planning, urban sociology and geography. Research, policy institutes and NGOs will also find value in the comprehensive history.

Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America explores the links between Latin American governments' economic policies and the nature and dynamics of inter-group violence. Based on the patterns of ten countries, the contributions to this volume trace the remarkable transformation from open ideological conflict to the explosion of social (seemingly apolitical) violence, the upsurge of urban crime, and the confrontations over natural resources and drugs across the region spanning from Mexico to Argentina. The variations in economic success and in conflict prevention and transformation can guide policymakers, development professionals, and activists committed to conflict-sensitive development.