This book provides a general overview of the challenges of economic development for the five billion people living in developing countries. While they constitute over 80 percent of the world's population, they account for only 40% of the world's output, and are home to 2.6 billion people living on less than $2.00 per day. Thinking on economic development has shifted over time. Early theories that stressed capital formation and a heavy reliance on the public sector proved inadequate. Gradually, economists began to see that development was a complex, multifaceted problem that combined economic issues with problems of poverty and income distribution, insititution building and governance. While there have been many failures, there have also been many successes. Countries such as China, Chile, Ghana, and Korea demonstrate that good policies and strong institutions can result in remarkable progress. However, many poor countries, particularly those in Africa continue to lag behind. Closing this gap remains a major challenge for the world, particularly as the growing population and output of developing countries accelerate tensions in such areas as trade, immigration and financial flows.

This book provides a general overview of the challenges of economic development for the five billion people living in developing countries. While they constitute over 80 percent of the world's population, they account for only 40% of the world's output, and are home to 2.6 billion people living on less than $2.00 per day. Thinking on economic development has shifted over time. Early theories that stressed capital formation and a heavy reliance on the public sector proved inadequate. Gradually, economists began to see that development was a complex, multifaceted problem that combined economic issues with problems of poverty and income distribution, insititution building and governance. While there have been many failures, there have also been many successes. Countries such as China, Chile, Ghana, and Korea demonstrate that good policies and strong institutions can result in remarkable progress. However, many poor countries, particularly those in Africa continue to lag behind. Closing this gap remains a major challenge for the world, particularly as the growing population and output of developing countries accelerate tensions in such areas as trade, immigration and financial flows.

This book surveys major economic issues in the development of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since World War II. It presents a framework of analysis highlighting underlying continuities in the region's approach to issues of growth, management of oil and natural resources, post-conflict environments, progress in trade liberalization and regional integration, the use of industrial policy, labor market adjustment and unemployment, educational attainment and poverty incidence. At the same time, this book focuses on emerging differences across countries in the region in the prevailing approach to addressing such challenges most notably between the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other MENA countries.This book also incorporates a discussion of tools and methods used by development practitioners and briefly examines issues of aid effectiveness. The approach used is intended to appeal to a wide audience including students of economic development, political scientists and development practitioners.

A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging market and developing economies. This may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic--unless governments adopt a broad set of policies to address the challenges of widespread informality. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development. It finds that pervasive informality is associated with significantly weaker economic outcomes--including lower government resources to combat recessions, lower per capita incomes, greater poverty, less financial development, and weaker investment and productivity.

Important parts of development practice, especially in key institutions such as the World Bank, are dominated by economists. In contrast, Development Studies is largely based upon multidisciplinary work in which anthropologists, human geographers, sociologists, and others play important roles. Hence, a tension has arisen between the claims made by Development Economics to be a scientific, measurable discipline prone to wide usage of mathematical modelling, and the more discursive, practice based approach favoured by Development Studies. The aim of this book is to show how the two disciplines have interacted, as well as how they differ. This is crucial in forming an understanding of development work, and to thinking about why policy recommendations can often lead to severe and continuing problems in developing countries. This book introduces Development Economics to those coming from two different but linked perspectives; economists and students of development who are not economists. In both explaining and critiquing Development Economics, the book is able to suggest the implications of these findings for Development Studies, and more broadly, for development policy and its outcomes.

The Challenge of Third World Developmentexamines political, economic, and social change in countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Exploring common issues and problems in these regions, this text helps students grasp the structural dynamics and human stories behind democratization, economic growth, poverty, global warming, ethnic conflict, women’s changing roles, and more. Accessibly written for students of political science, sociology, or anthropology,The Challenge of Third World Developmentimmerses readers in developing countries’ ongoing dilemmas, their global implications, and individual, national, and international responses.

Explores the various ways in which the institutions of the global economy might rise to the challenges posed by the twin goals of increasing the pace of global development and alleviating poverty. This book also provides a much-needed analysis of the successes and failures of international institutions in achieving these aims.