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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Development economics
This book explores the role of financial co-operative models in promoting and sustaining local development. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, there has been a great deal of disillusionment with the banking system, as well as a reaffirmation of the importance of a healthy society for the welfare of the individual. This edited volume argues that the crisis has shown the limits of the mainstream theory of markets and rational expectations, and therefore that new and innovative ways of providing finance are be needed, especially when strengthening the development of local societies. The volume assembles an international set of contributors, and combines theoretical contributions on co-operative finance and its role in local development with empirical investigations and case studies of the relationship between financial co-operative models and local development.
This innovative collection of essays from an international range of contributors describes various means of preserving, protecting and presenting vital cultural resources within the context of economic development, competing claims of "ownership" of particular cultural resources, modern uses of structures and space, and other aspects of late twentieth-century life.
During the past twenty or so years, foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have increased at rates approaching the astounding, especially so during the 1990s. While much of the increase was due to unprecedented cross-border mergers and acquisitions among high-income countries, the amount of FDI flowing to developing nations also grew substantially. This volume examines the economics of this FDI to developing countries. Some chapters are theoretical in nature, others empirical, and still others are largely policy-oriented. Topics covered include whether FDI makes an autonomous contribution to growth in these nations and whether or not 'spillovers' are generated by this investments. Also covered are effects of policy intervention by governments on FDI flows and whether non-economic factors (e.g. cultural factors) might figure as determinants of location of FDI.
Following the acquisition of its sovereignty from the Netherlands in 1949, Indonesia experienced serious economic and political problems during the 1950s and 1960s, before entering a three-decade-long period of rapid economic growth. Hard-hit by the financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia undertook a wide range of economic and financial reforms. These reforms served to prepare it well for the 2007-08 global financial crisis, through which Indonesia passed relatively unscathed. Drawing on empirical research, this book presents a comprehensive empirical study on the key macroeconomic relations and monetary policy issues in Indonesia. The book analyses monetary, fiscal and exchange-rate policies, looking at their interactions and impacts on the economy. It demonstrates how important macroeconomic management for monetary and financial stability is to sustained national economic growth and development. Data from the 1970s is compared and contrasted with 1950s data to analyse macroeconomic policies and issues in an historical context. Statistical and econometric techniques are juxtaposed with general empirical results to supplement informative discussion of macroeconomic and monetary developments. This book is a useful contribution to studies on macroeconomics and international development, as well as Southeast Asian studies.
This book examines the various economic, political and developmental policy challenges that Malaysia faces in her shift from a middle income to high-income economy. This issue is of great interest to academics, policy makers and development practitioners in the developing world, particularly in middle-income economies where there is a widespread concern about the challenges of managing such a transition. Malaysia is one of the developing world's greatest success stories. The book argues that as one of the developing world's most open economies, with a reputation for prudent macroeconomic management, Malaysia has achieved consistent growth since independence. It has moved from a largely resource-based economy to a multinational-led, export-oriented, industrial economy. Despite this success, Malaysia, like other developing countries, is currently at a crossroads in its development strategy; it is in danger of being unable to graduate to the level of more advanced economies - such as Korea, Taiwan and Singapore - but with the basis of its success at risk from competition from efficient, lower-wage countries - such as China, India and Vietnam. Moreover, there are new threats to the political stability and affirmative action programmes which have successfully held together a very racially diverse population.
Establishing a linkage between privatization and development is becoming increasingly important to decision-makers, economists, and political scientists. This book links privatization as an economic, political, and social phenomena with participation, decentralization, and development. It shows that privatization has rarely lived up to the ideal of generating sustainable development. In Part 1 the author looks at the relationship between privatization and development in theory and practice while in Part 2 the case of Jordan highlights the difficulties decision-makers face in implementing privatization.
Economists have long recognized the gains from international trade. The question is, does international trade - or more broadly, globalization - increase growth? Notwithstanding the debates, there are still many questions, old and new, need to be explored in order to improve our understanding on various aspects of globalization, including its consequences. This book addresses some of these questions, utilizing micro datasets of some East Asian countries. The focus on East Asia is particularly interesting for the reason that most of these countries have relatively more opened economy and experienced a rapid de facto integration quite recently. The book puts forward questions which are related to the relationship between globalization on the one hand, and firm performance, activities, or characteristics, on the other. The chapters draw recent theoretical framework from the relevant literatures, and then empirically test - mostly by econometric analysis - the hypotheses on these relationships. The extent or magnitude of the globalization impact is also demonstrated by the means of descriptive analysis. Finally, there are useful insights for policy decision-makers to be drawn from the empirical results. The book presents rigorous empirical analysis based on recent theoretical framework in international economics, focusing on the highest growing region in the world. The use of micro-data analysis - a key feature of this book - gives us much richer information on various issues of globalization. This book, therefore, should be of the interest to scholars and postgraduate students of international economics, development economics, and East Asian economics.
Behind the mystery of economic growth stands another mystery: why do some places fare better than others? Casual evidence shows that sizable differences exist at very different spatial scales (countries, regions and cities). This book aims to discuss the main economic reasons for the existence of peaks and troughs in the spatial distribution of wealth and people, with a special emphasis on the role of large cities and regional agglomerations in the process of economic development.
This book provides a unique laboratory of capabilities in practice in the Asia-Pacific region. It explores the application of the capability approach in development practice and public policy from a multidisciplinary perspective by bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including development studies, health policy, political science, political theory, political economy, architecture, indigenous studies, urban planning and communication technologies. The first part of the book provides a foundational theoretical framework to introduce the empirical applications of the capability theory in different areas of development practice and public policy in the Asia-Pacific region. This part discusses thorny issues in capability theory and raises the potential for capability theory to lead to new ways of thinking about old problems. The second part discusses the application of the capability approach to intransigent problems of marginalisation and the articulation of public policy in New Zealand and Australia. In particular, this part focuses on the potential implications that a capability-based approach can have on the well-being of indigenous peoples in both countries, as well as children, older renters, and urban dwellers in Australia. The third part elucidates how capability theory is being applied by researchers in the Asia-Pacific region to local issues in developing countries such as Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. In doing so, it provides original content to the world market in capability theory by focussing on this often-neglected area of scholarship. As a whole, this volume offers a unique and innovative scrutiny of a multifaceted capability-based analysis of development practice and public policy. The scope and breadth of this volume advance the application of the capability approach and offer an indispensable resource to scholars, researchers, policy makers and policy practitioners interested in the theoretical insights and practical implications of the capability approach.
Most major development NGOs dedicate significant resources to advocacy. Many also work to inform and shape public opinion, whether through advertising or fundraising or through education programmes. They argue that fundamental change is not achieved until the policy environment is right and cannot be sustained without a groundswell of support for reform. In recent years, however, advocacy work has come under increasing criticism. NGOs are challenged on the grounds of: Legitimacy - Whom do they represent, and to whom are they accountable? Effectiveness - What practical impact does high-level advocacies have on the lives of people living in poverty and who is to judge this? Role - Should NGOs try to combine funding and advocacy or do these demand different kinds of South-North relationship? Strategy - Are NGOs seduced by agencies like the World Bank or by the corporate sector to readily? When does constructive engagement with these powerful bodies turn into co-option by them? As international grassroots advocacy is becoming more vocal thanks to new communication technologies; what is the appropriate role for Northern NGOs?
*Wide range of authors and contributors, drawn from a variety of backgrounds and countries including Cuba, Ecuador, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Peru, Tanzania, and the UK*Includes annotated bibliography of current and classic titles on the subject, which constitute an essential reading list on the topic of 'development and cities'*Includes specially commissioned introductory overview by David WestendorffApproaches to sustainable development in cities of the South have focused too exclusively on narrow technical aspects of environmental protection, and have not benefited the large majority of urban residents in cities and peri-urban areas. However, in many countries of the South, the disengagement of government along with budgetary constraints, a reliance on cost-recovery mechanisms within structural adjustment packages, and increasing disparity between poor and rich, further reduce access by the poor to even the most rudimentary services. "Development and Cities" focuses on the political, social, and economic viability of new or alternative approaches to urban management in the South that best increase access to adequate levels of basic services and healthy living and working conditions for all. Case-studies include cities from Argentina, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Contributors include Adrian Atkinson, Diego Carrisn, Karina Constantino-David, Jaime Joseph, W. J. Kombe, Amitabh Kundu, Darshini Mahadevia, Fernando Murillo, Cesare Ottolini, Geoffrey Payne, and Hilhne Rivihre d'Arc.
Culture has been defined as the sum of all the resources, be they material, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual, that people draw upon to give meaning to their lives. All models of development are essentially cultural in that they reflect perceptions of and responses to the problems faced by human societies. Yet despite international recognition of their inter-connectedness, represented by the 1995 report of the World Commission on Culture and Development, published by UNESCO, most development policies and interventions are based on an assumption that 'modernization' in the Western sense is the ultimate goal. Culture is therefore regarded either as an impediment to progress, or as something to be kept outside the economic and political spheres and consigned to the areas of religion and ritual. This anthology, written by a variety of aid practitioners and scholars, shows the need to go beyond viewing culture merely as an important dimension of development, to seeing development itself as a cultural expression, and culture as the basis upon which societies can develop through self-renewal and growth.
The Asian economic crisis of 1997-99 showed that the model of growth through export manufactures adopted by Korea could not sustain the country to the next rung of economic development; even after the crisis the labour market remained under considerable stress. This new book looks at the major issues that have faced the Korean labour market since the financial crisis, tracing the rise in inequality and division between workers in different sectors and the effect of expansion in higher education, increased longevity and the low fertility. This book brings together key contributions from Korean labour researchers, containing a guide to the data on Korean workers and firms. For those who want to understand the challenges that face a successful developing country on the road to the top rungs of economic progress, the book lays them out and describes new policy solutions.
Much has been written about the wealth of nations, the history of unequal distribution of wealth, and the creation of zones of affluence and deprivation, both within and between societies. This book sets out to explore why some Asian nations are more prosperous than others through an examination of how their interaction with and utilization of resources has changed over the centuries.
First published in 1964, The Economic Development of South-East Asia: Studies in economic history and political economy contains eight papers originally written for a study group at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The papers, edited by Professor C. D. Cowan, are written against a background of economic underdevelopment in large parts of Asia. Economic problems increasingly plagued the governments of Asia after the Second World War, and while Western governments were willing to help foster economic development, relations with Asian governments were somewhat hindered by the heritage of their colonial past. Problems also related to the growth of traditional trading ports and export crops, and to the importation of colonial regimes, western funds and skills in the nineteenth century. Such developments come under the loosely generalised concept of imperialism, with its strongly emotional overtones, whose use impedes the objective assessment and analysis of facts. While we understand a good deal about conditions of economic growth in the West, much of what has fostered or retarded growth in other parts of the world remains less clear.
Written by a senior advisor at the United States Agency for International Development in Liberia, this book analyzes the development problems facing Africa today. Rather than the typical doom-and-gloom approach, the book takes a positive approach and looks at African achievements.
By 2008, total Fair Trade purchases in the developed world reached nearly $3 billion, a five-fold increase in four years. Consumers pay a "fair price" for Fair Trade items, which are meant to generate greater earnings for family farmers, cover the costs of production, and support socially just and environmentally sound practices. Yet constrained by existing markets and the entities that dominate them, Fair Trade often delivers material improvements for producers that are much more modest than the profound social transformations the movement claims to support. There has been scant real-world assessment of Fair Trade's effectiveness. Drawing upon fine-grained anthropological studies of a variety of regions and commodity systems including Darjeeling tea, coffee, crafts, and cut flowers, the chapters in Fair Trade and Social Justice represent the first works to use ethnographic case studies to assess whether the Fair Trade Movement is actually achieving its goals. Contributors: Julia Smith, Mark Moberg, Catherine Ziegler , Sarah Besky, Sarah M. Lyon, Catherine S. Dolan, Patrick C. Wilson, Faidra Papavasiliou, Molly Doane, Kathy M'Closkey, Jane Henrici
Written for the nontechnical reader and intended to intervene in the policy debate, " Debt Disaster?" offers informative analysis, controversial assessments, and concrete solutions to bring a close the bleakest period for the Third World since the end of World War II. Out of this volume comes a clear message: the indebted countries cannot grow if they seek to pay their debts, no matter what policies they follow. The contributors include: Barry Herman, Rolph van der Hoeven, Karin Lissakers, Paul M. Sacks, Chris Canavan, Robert Liebenthal, Peter Nicholas, Robin A. King, Michael. D. Robinson, Richard D. Fletcher, JOse D. Epstein, William L. Canak, Danilo Levi, Louellen Stedman, Peter Hakim, Vali Jamal, Bruce Morrison, Rudiger Dornbusch, Osvaldo Sunkel, William Darity, Jr., and MIchael Pl. Claudon.
India has moved along an impressive growth path over the last decade, marked with falling share of agriculture, stagnating manufacturing, expanding services segment, growing trade orientation, enhanced FDI inflows etc. The consequent growth implications are obvious as far as the numbers like GDP growth rate and Per Capita GDP trend are concerned, but how sustainable the associated development is with respect to resource management and environmental governance? This book captures the economy-wide impacts of various activities on environment in India. The environmental impacts on water, air, soil quality and human health are captured through case studies from different parts of India. Analyzing separately the concern areas within agriculture (cultivation, aquaculture), manufacturing (industrial pollution, power generation), services (waste management, bio-medical waste, e-waste recycling) and external sector (agricultural trade, FDI inflow, trade in waste products) performance of India, the book attempts to find an answer to that crucial question. The methodology adopted to capture the environmental impacts of various economic activities is derived from the relevant branches like environmental economics, agricultural economics, and water resources economics. The book, focusing on particular sectors, indicates the concern areas and possible ways for enhancing environmental governance.
Growing concerns about the impacts of climate change and dependence on fossil fuels have intensified interest in bioenergy from sugar cane and other crops, highlighting important links between energy, environment and development goals. Sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by severe poverty; the possibility to exploit a renewable energy resource offers valuable avenues for sustainable development and could support a more dynamic and competitive economy. This book describes how the bioenergy expansion will improve rural livelihoods, reduce costly energy imports, reduce GHG emissions, and offer new development paths. Drawing on international experience, it is shown that harnessing this potential will require significant increases in investment, technology transfer, and international cooperation. Because of its high efficiency, the authors argue that sugar cane should be viewed as a global resource for sustainable development and should command much greater focus and concerted policy action. Through an analysis of the agronomy, land suitability and industrial processing of sugar cane and its co-products, along with an assessment of the energy, economic and environmental implications, this volume demonstrates that sugar cane offers a competitive and environmentally beneficial resource for Africa's economic development and energy security. With fourty-four authors representing thirty organisations in sixteen countries, the book offers a truly international and interdisciplinary perspective by combining technical and economic principles with social, political and environmental assessment and policy analysis.
A rich ethnographic portrait of food-provisioning processes in a contemporary African city, offering valuable lessons about the powerful roles of gender, migration, exchange, sex, and charity in food acquisition. Based on anthropologist Karen Coen Flynn's study of Mwanza, Tanzania, this work draws on the personal accounts of over 350 market vendors, low, middle and high-income consumers, urban farmers as well as those, including children, who live on the streets. This strikingly original work offers interdisciplinary appeal to a broad audience of both students and professionals interested in anthropology, African studies, urban studies, gender studies and development economics.
This book chronicles the most essential causes and implications of these trends, which have expanded international food assistance well beyond the simple shipment of donated food aid commodities. We pay particular attention to how these trends shape and are shaped by European Union (EU) and United States (U.S.) food assistance policy and practice, and highlight the principles to which donors can adhere to move international food assistance forward.
This book examines the causes of the economic and political crisis in Argentina in 2001 and the process of strong economic recovery. It poses the question of how a country which defaulted on its external loans and was widely criticized by international observers could have succeeded in its growth and development despite this decision in 2002. It examines this process in terms of the impact of neo-liberal policies on the economy and the role of development strategy and the state in recovering from the crisis
The global business world appears to be changing and there is an ever greater focus on developing countries. This change in the international business environment is not reflected in the range of management textbooks currently available, as most are written from a developed country perspective This book introduces and assesses the typical theories and management approaches that are popular in developed countries, from the perspective of managers in developing countries. A wide variety of countries, with many different environments and cultures are explored and the book covers key concepts, such as
With the added benefit of various pedagogical features and supplementary web materials, students taking classes requiring an understanding of management concepts will find Punnett 's book adds serious value. It could be used as core reading for a range of classes, including international business, management, development studies and managing in a developing country.
Investments are widely accepted as the matchless path to development. Real estate is as much a prerequisite for investment as are capital and labour. Nonetheless, relative progress in ensuring that arrangements concerning real estate are compatible with desired magnitudes of investments in Africa remains far from satisfactory. Treatment of real estate in the development literature remains tangential and incoherent. This volume explores why real estate policies in Africa have not worked well and examines how they can or should be more organised for efficient and successful outcomes. This book is essential reading for all interested in development economics, real estate economics and African studies. |
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