A key to understanding why some rural development policies succeed and some fail is found in this book. The editors contend that established economic models are inadequate to interpret the behavior of rural market and nonmarket institutions. This book investigates the economic institutions, contractual arrangements, and technological constraints found in rural land, labor, and credit markets. Not only does it contribute new empirical evidence and expand economic theory, it also provides fresh insight for agricultural policymaking and institutional reform. Drawing together recent theoretical work, case studies, and historical research, the editors explore some of the most pressing problems facing developing countries: how to promote financial integration of the rural sector, how to rationalize the use of land and water, and how to design and administer rural tax and transfer policies. While some of the theoretical chapters are technical, the overview chapters and most of the case studies are not. These chapters should be accessible to a wide audience of policymakers, academics from many disciplines, and university students.

Essay on the various factors, especially the political ideologies, shaping the development of the Third World and the resulting social and economic conditions of the proletariat.

The Oxford Handbook of Computational Economics and Finance provides a survey of both the foundations of and recent advances in the frontiers of analysis and action. It is both historically and interdisciplinarily rich and also tightly connected to the rise of digital society. It begins with the conventional view of computational economics, including recent algorithmic development in computing rational expectations, volatility, and general equilibrium. It then moves from traditional computing in economics and finance to recent developments in natural computing, including applications of nature-inspired intelligence, genetic programming, swarm intelligence, and fuzzy logic. Also examined are recent developments of network and agent-based computing in economics. How these approaches are applied is examined in chapters on such subjects as trading robots and automated markets. The last part deals with the epistemology of simulation in its trinity form with the integration of simulation, computation, and dynamics. Distinctive is the focus on natural computationalism and the examination of the implications of intelligent machines for the future of computational economics and finance. Not merely individual robots, but whole integrated systems are extending their "immigration" to the world of Homo sapiens, or symbiogenesis.

This study concerns the differentials of economic growth among the Fijian people. It brings together relevant factors drawn from social, cultural, economic and political analysis. As a case study in economic growth, it portrays the interplay between individuals and the social and economic conditions which surround them, and demonstrates the limitations of the institutions within which they function. Controversial points of interpretation are discussed and supported with documentation gathered from field-work. Originally published in 1964.