| Title : | Development economics | | Material Type: | printed text | | Authors: | Debraj Ray, Author | | Publisher: | Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press | | Publication Date: | 1998 | | Pagination: | xvii, 848 p. | | Size: | 26 cm | | ISBN (or other code): | 978-0-691-01706-8 | | General note: | Includes bibliographical references (p. [805]-828) and indexes | | Languages : | English (eng) Original Language : English (eng) | | Descriptors: | Development economics
| | Class number: | 338.9 | | Abstract: | The study of development in lowincome countries is attracting more attention around the world than ever before. Yet, until now there has been no comprehensive text that incorporates the huge strides made in the subject over the past decade. "Development Economics" does precisely that in a clear, rigorous, and elegant fashion. Debraj Ray, one of the most accomplished theorists in development economics today, presents in this book a synthesis of recent and older literature in the field and raises important questions that will help to set the agenda for future research. He covers such vital subjects as theories of economic growth, economic inequality, poverty and under-nutrition, population growth, trade policy, and the markets for land, labor, and credit. A common point of view underlies the treatment of these subjects: that much of the development process can be understood by studying factors that impede the efficient and equitable functioning of markets. Diverse topics such as the new growth theory, moral hazard in land contracts, information-based theories of credit markets, and the macroeconomic implications of economic inequality come under this common methodological umbrella. The book takes the position that there is no single cause for economic progress, but that a combination of factors - among them the improvement of physical and human capital, the reduction of inequality, and institutions that enable the background flow of information essential to market performance - consistently favor development. Ray supports his arguments throughout with examples from around the world. The book assumes a knowledge of only introductory economics and explains sophisticated concepts in simple, direct language, keeping the use of mathematics to a minimum. "Development Economics" will be the definitive textbook in this subject for years to come. It will prove useful to researchers by showing intriguing connections among a wide variety of subjects that are rarely discussed together in the same book. And it will be an important resource for policy-makers, who increasingly find themselves dealing with complex issues of growth, inequality, poverty, and social welfare. | | Contents note: | Economic Development: Overview; Introduction; Income and growth; Historical experience; Measurement issues; Income distribution in developing countries; The many faces of underdevelopment; Human development; An index of human development; Per capital income and human development; Some structural features; Demographic characteristics; Occupational and production structure; Rapid rural--urban migration; International trade; Summary Exercises; Economic Growth; Modern economic growth; Basic features; Theories of economic growth; The Harrod--Domar model; Beyond Harrod—Domar; Other considerations; The Solow model; Technical progress; Convergence?; Unconditional convergence; Level convergence; Evidence or lack thereof ; Unconditional convergence; A summation; Conditional convergence; Reexamining the data; Summary Appendix; The Harrod--Domar equations; Production functions and per capital magnitudes Exercises; The New Growth Theories; Human capital and growth; Another look at conditional convergence; Technical progress again; Technological progress and human decisions; A model of deliberate technical progress; Externalities, technical progress, and growth; Total factor productivity; Total factor productivity and the East Asian miracle; Summary Appendix: Human capital and growth Exercises; History, Expectations, and Development; Complementarities; Coordination failure; Linkages and policy; History versus expectations; Increasing returns; Increasing returns and entry into markets; Increasing returns and market size: Interaction; Competition, multiplicity, and international trade; Other roles for history; Social norms; The status quo; Summary Exercises; Economic Inequality; What is economic inequality?; The context; Economic inequality: Preliminary observations; Measuring economic inequality; Four criteria for inequality measurement; The Lorenz curve; Complete measures of inequality; Summary Exercises Inequality and Development: Interconnections; Inequality, income, and growth; The Inverted-U hypothesis; Testing the inverted-U hypothesis; Income and inequality: Uneven and compensatory changes; Inequality, savings, income, and growth; Inequality, political redistribution, and growth; Inequality and growth: Evidence; Inequality and demand composition; Inequality, capital markets, and development; Inequality and development: Human capital; Summary Appendix: Multiple steady states with imperfect capital markets; Poverty and Undernutrition; Poverty: First principles Conceptual issues; Poverty measures; Poverty: Empirical observations; Demographic features; Rural and urban poverty; Assets; Nutrition; The functional impact of poverty; Poverty, credit, and insurance; Poverty, nutrition, and labor markets; Poverty and the household; Summary Appendix: More on poverty measures Exercises; Population Growth and Economic Development; Population: Some basic concepts; Birth and death rates; Age distributions; From economic development to population growth; The demographic transition; Historical trends in developed and developing countries; The adjustment of birth rates; Is fertility too high; From population growth to economic development; Some negative effects; Some positive effects; Summary Exercises; Rural and Urban; Overview; The structural viewpoint; Formal and informal urban sectors; Agriculture; The ICRISAT villages; Rural--urban interaction; Two fundamental resource flows; The Lewis model; Rural--urban migration; The basic model; Floors on formal wages and the Harris--Todaro equilibrium; Government policy; Comments and extensions; Markets in Agriculture; Land, labor, capital, and credit; Land and labor; Capital and credit; Land; Ownership and tenancy; Land rental contracts; Contractual forms; Contracts and incentives; Risk, tenancy, and sharecropping; Tenancy forms: Other considerations; Land contracts, eviction, and use rights; Land ownership; A brief history of land inequality; Land size and productivity: Concepts; Land size and productivity: Empirical evidence; Land sales; Land reform; Summary Appendix; Principal--agent theory and its applications; Risk, moral hazard, and the agency problem; Tenancy contracts revisited Appendix; Screening and sharecropping Exercises; Labor categories; A familiar model; Poverty, nutrition, and labor markets; The basic model; Nutrition, time, and casual labor markets; A model of nutritional status; Permanent labor markets; Types of permanent labor; Why study permanent labor?; Permanent labor: Non monitored tasks; Permanent labor: casual tasks; Summary Exercises; Credit; The limits to credit and insurance; Sources of demand for credit and insurance; Rural credit markets Who provides rural credit?; Some characteristics of rural credit markets; Theories of informal credit markets; Lender's monopoly; The lender's risk hypothesis; Default and fixed-capital loans; Default and collateral; Default and credit rationing; Informational asymmetries and credit rationing; Default and enforcement; Interlinked transactions; Hidden interest; Inter linkages and information; Inter linkages and enforcement; Inter linkages and creation of efficient surplus; Alternative credit policies; Vertical formal--informal links; Micro-finance; Summary Exercises; Insurance; Basic concepts; The perfect insurance model; Theory; Testing the theory; Limits to insurance: Information; Limited information about the final outcome; Limited information about what led to the outcome; Limits to insurance: Enforcement; Enforcement-based limits to perfect insurance; Enforcement and imperfect insurance; International Trade; World trading patterns; Comparative advantage; Sources of comparative advantage; Technology; Factor endowments; Preferences; Economies of scale; Trade Policy; Gains from trade?; Overall gains and distributive effects; Overall losses from trade?; Trade policy: Import substitution; Basic concepts; More detail; Export promotion; Basic concepts; Effect on the exchange rate; The instruments of export promotion: More detail; The move away from import substitution; The eighties crisis; Structural adjustment; Summary Appendix: The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; Multilateral Approaches to Trade Policy; Restricted trade; Second-best arguments for protection; Protectionist tendencies; Explaining protectionist tendencies; Issues in trade liberalization; Regional agreements: Basic theory; Regional agreements among dissimilar countries; Regional agreements among similar countries; Multilateralism and regionalism; | | Record link: | https://library.seeu.edu.mk/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=5526 |
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