One of the most influential studies ever written in the field of development economics, this book has, since first publication in 1957, bred a whole school of followers who are producing further works along the lines indicated by Baran. Concerned with the generation and use of economic surplus, it analyzes from this point of view both the advanced and the underdeveloped countries. A work in political economy rather than solely in economics, this book treats the economic transformation of society as one facet of a total social and political evolution.

A theoretical framework for analyzing the complex relationship of education, growth, and income distribution. The dominant role played by the state in the financing, regulation, and provision of primary and secondary education reflects the widely-held belief that education is necessary for personal and societal well-being. The economic organization of education depends on political as well as market mechanisms to resolve issues that arise because of contrasting views on such matters as income inequality, social mobility, and diversity. This book provides the theoretical framework necessary for understanding the political economy of education—the complex relationship of education, economic growth, and income distribution—and for formulating effective policies to improve the financing and provision of education. The relatively simple models developed illustrate the use of analytical tools for understanding central policy issues. After offering a historical overview of the development of public education and a review of current econometric evidence on education, growth, and income distribution, the authors lay the theoretical groundwork for the main body of analysis. First they develop a basic static model of how political decisions determine education spending; then they extend this model dynamically. Applying this framework to a comparison of education financing under different regimes, the authors explore fiscal decentralization; individual choice between public and private schooling, including the use of education vouchers to combine public financing of education with private provision; and the social dimension of education—its role in state-building, the traditional "melting pot" that promotes cohesion in a culturally diverse society.

Those studying development often address the impact of government policies, but rarely the politics that generate these policies. A culmination of several decades of work by Robert Bates, among the most respected comparativists in political science, this compact volume seeks to rectify that omission. Bates addresses the political origins of prosperity and security and uncovers the root causes of under-development. Without the state there can be no development, but those who are endowed with the power of the state often use its power to appropriate the wealth and property of those they rule. When do those with power use it to safeguard rather than to despoil? Bates explores this question by analyzing motivations behind the behaviour of governments in the developing world, drawing on historical and anthropological insights, game theory, and his own field research in developing nations.

These original contributions by some of today's leading macroeconomists and political economists explore a broad spectrum of social, political, and technological variables that encourage or impede economic growth. What political and economic factors stimulate growth and make an economy expand? These original contributions by some of today's leading macroeconomists and political economists explore a broad spectrum of social, political, and technological variables that encourage or impede economic growth. Topics range from economic reform and price flexibility to the economic effects of political coups and include both theoretical analysis and empirical results.During the past decade, economists have seen important new developments linking growth and business cycles to government policy. These contributions provide a clear understanding of these processes and their effect in shaping economic policy. They look at the welfare side of economics and offer strong economic models to explain the connection between social policies and economic growth. For example, John Londregan and Keith Poole address the economic effects of political coups, Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini explore the question of whether inequality is harmful for growth, and Stephen Parente and Edward Prescott look at the role of technology adoption in stimulating growth.The essays cover a wide range of approaches. Several focus on the interaction between growth and the choice of policy, where policy reacts to economic and distributional considerations through a majority rule process. Others take the policy as given and focus on the empirical estimation of the speed of convergence of rates of growth across states and regions and the importance of externalities and knowledge spillovers for rates of growth. Essays about the business cycle fall into two broad categories. One, arising from the new political economy tradition, examines the effects of elections and price decontrols on the business cycle. The other explores the implications of optimal economic policies in a representative agent framework for the cyclical behavior of the economy.

This book provides a political economy perspective on Chile’s contemporary economic development, explaining the different stages of Chile’s neoliberal pattern of economic integration into the global economy from 1973 to 2015. Three key explanatory variables are considered: the evolution of business-state relations, US geopolitical interest in the region through the waves of trade agreements, and the political impact of the dynamics of inflows and outflows of financial capital. Although Chile is typically considered to be a successful case of a free market economy, this book presents an alternative narrative of Chile’s growth through using a Latin American Structuralist political economy perspective. While it recognises the positive results in terms of growth, it also emphasises the lack of dynamic sources for long-term development, which embeds the economy into short-term booms followed by periods of stagnation.

This book examines how a society that is trapped in stagnation might initiate and sustain economic and political development. In this context, progress requires the reform of existing arrangements, along with the complementary evolution of informal institutions. It involves enhancing state capacity, balancing broad avenues for political input, and limiting concentrated private and public power. This juggling act can only be accomplished by resolving collective-action problems (CAPs), which arise when individuals pursue interests that generate undesirable outcomes for society at large. Merging and extending key perspectives on CAPs, inequality, and development, this book constructs a flexible framework to investigate these complex issues. By probing four basic hypotheses related to knowledge production, distribution, power, and innovation, William D. Ferguson offers an analytical foundation for comparing and evaluating approaches to development policy. Navigating the theoretical terrain that lies between simplistic hierarchies of causality and idiosyncratic case studies, this book promises an analytical lens for examining the interactions between inequality and development. Scholars and researchers across economic development and political economy will find it to be a highly useful guide.

The period from 1960 to 2000 was one of remarkable growth and transformation in the world economy. Why did most of Sub-Saharan Africa fail to develop over this period? Why did a few small African economies succeed spectacularly? The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000 is by far the most ambitious and comprehensive assessment of Africa's post-independence economic performance to date. Volume 1 examines the impact of resource wealth and geographical remoteness on Africa's growth and develops a new dataset of governance regimes covering all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Separate chapters analyze the dominant patterns of governance observed over the period and their impact on growth, the ideological formation of the political elite, the roots of political violence and reform, and the lessons of the 1960–2000 period for contemporary growth strategy.