This collection of essays provides a state-of-the-art examination of the concepts and methods that can be used to understand poverty dynamics. It does this from an interdisciplinary perspective and includes the work of anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists. The contributions included highlight the need to conceptualise poverty from a multidimensional perspective and promote Q-Squared research approaches, or those that combine quantitative and qualitative research.
The first part of the book provides a review of the research on poverty dynamics in developing countries. Part Two focuses on poverty measurement and assessment, and discusses the most recent work of world-leading poverty analysts. The third part focuses on frameworks for understanding poverty analysis that avoid measurement and instead utilize approaches based on social relations and structural analysis.
There is widespread consensus that poverty analysis should focus on poverty dynamics and this book shows how this idea can practically be taken forward.

In" Development, Security, and Aid" Jamey Essex offers a sophisticated study of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), examining the separate but intertwined discourses of geopolitics and geoeconomics.
Geopolitics concentrates on territory, borders, and strategic political and military positioning within the international state system. Geoeconomics emphasizes economic power, growth, and connectedness within a global, and supposedly borderless, system. Both discourses have strongly influenced the strategies of USAID and the views of American policy makers, bureaucrats, and business leaders toward international development. Providing a unique geographical analysis of American development policy, Essex details USAID's establishment in 1961 and traces the agency's growth from the Cold War into an era of neoliberal globalization up to and beyond 9/11, the global war on terror, and the looming age of austerity.
USAID promotes improvement for millions by providing emergency assistance and support for long-term economic and social development. Yet the agency's humanitarian efforts are strongly influenced, and often trumped, by its mandate to advance American foreign policies. As a site of, a strategy for, and an agent in the making of geopolitics and geoeconomics, USAID, Essex argues, has often struggled to reconcile its many institutional mandates and objectives. The agency has always occupied a precarious political position, one that is increasingly marked by the strong influence of military, corporate, and foreign-policy institutions in American development strategy.

China has initiated and implemented its economic reforms for over 30 years, however, the comprehensive economic reforms and opening up is still unfolding. The author was a state leader, who has personally engaged in China's economic policy-making process from 1999 to 2008, and is an economist, who has deeply studied and thought over China's financial reform in various aspects. This book summarizes the results of the author's research on China's financial reforms, adopting the fictitious economy theory, in the past 10 years.Financial Reforms and Development in China focuses on the developmental process and main features of the fictitious economy; the essence and the law of the fictitious capital (including credit capital, knowledge capital, social capital, etc.); the relationship between the fictitious economy and the real economy. The book attempts to use the fictitious economy theory to analyze the chaos and self-organization of financial system, financial crisis, inflation and deflation, economic globalization, and knowledge-based economy and society.The book, comprising 12 chapters, covers all the main aspects of China's financial reform and provides readers with a practitioner's reading of China's financial markets, including financial globalization, the financial system and product innovation, financial crisis, financial security, financial regulation, universal banking, capital markets, money market, commercial banks, rural finance, futures markets, foreign exchange markets, financial derivatives, equity markets, insurance and so on.The book is invaluable from the perspectives of its contribution to economic theory, in developing an understanding of the actual workings of China's economic and financial reforms in the past decade, and in forecasting future developments in China's economy and financial markets. It will appeal to academics, undergraduate students, graduate students, professionals, general readers interested in finance, the financial reform and market in China, as well as China's development and the fictitious economy.

The book provides a systematic review of research results on regional economic competitiveness, and constructs an evaluation index system based on nine key aspects: the development of a micro-economy; industrial development; enterprise strength; the sciences; education; innovation; environment governance and protection; financial development; and the degree of opening to the outside world. The book subsequently provides policy suggestions on how to enhance the economic and social development of the West of China based on a comprehensive evaluation and analysis. In addition to comparing the recent social development of the provinces in the West, the book also calls upon the central government to play the leading role, encourage mass participation and promote the opening up of the West of China.

This volume presents a perspective on programs and policies designed to enhance the development of local and regional economics. The primary purpose is to provide an overview to assist economic development organizations in implementing competitive positioning programs and utilize IRM (information resources management) techniques. The first three chapters build the case for an information resources management (IRM) perspective on economic development. Chapter Four rounds out the discussion by proposing broad-based academic and governmental endeavors based on a perspective on economic development that is consonant with a rapidly changing, highly interdependent, global economy in today's Information Age.

Knowing what deep participation is, and how it works, can make a critical difference in solving 21st century economic, political, and social problems. This book provides a new approach to hands-on change and begins formulation of a participatory social theory promising greater prosperity and justice for all.

This thesis documents almost twenty years of the author's work on the development and implementation of a new approach to holistic community development in remote and disadvantaged villages in Nepal. It describes the theoretical basis of the work, the main research activities, and the practical outcomes of the implemented programs. One of the fundamental cornerstones of holistic community development is the provision of appropriate and sustainable solutions for the long-term development of local communities. This requires that people's own identified needs be recognized and addressed in partnership with them in holistic ways. The author explains the many synergies that result from this holistic approach to community development. Another cornerstone of his approach is to utilise the communities' locally available renewable resources for long-term sustainable development. One of the key findings of the thesis is that improved access to energy services, such as cooking with a smokeless metal stove in a clean indoor environment, basic indoor lighting, and increased food production and safe food storage (through a greenhouse and a solar drier respectively), need to be at the very heart of any long-term holistic community development project. The thesis demonstrates that tapping into locally available renewable energy resources and converting them, through contextualized and locally manufactured renewable energy technologies, has a central role in long-term holistic community development programs. Such programs are successful because they provide both appropriate technologies and life-changing experiences for the local users involved.

Restructuring economies in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere are abandoning their hostility to foreign enterprises and adopting policies to attract international investment. This book examines corporate experiences in Chile, one of the first nations to move successfully from a statist economy to an open market system using privatization, debt conversion, and liberal trade and investment policies. Drawing from research on over seventy foreign corporations, the book compares investment strategies used to assess risk and exploit business opportunities under conditions of fundamental economic change. Case studies describe how and why firms selected different financing, management, employment, production, and marketing approaches in establishing or expanding their operations.

After a brief historical review, the book examines key policy decisions in the 1980s that shaped Chile's new economy. Case studies are then analyzed by sector, covering mining and energy, nontraditional exports (forestry, fishing, and agribusiness), banking and insurance, and other industries including computers, telecommunications, chemicals, electrical goods, automotive products, foods and beverages, and pharmaceuticals. Summary chapters relate these learning experiences to broader strategic issues such as ownership and control, financing methods, technology transfer, trade policy, labor relations, taxation, regulatory reform, and coordinating global corporate operations. This book presents cumulative learning experiences useful for business executives and public officials who must develop new foreign investment strategies, as well as scholars and students interested in the role of foreign investment in developing countries.

This book examines key determinants of private sector development in West Africa, putting special emphasis on government s cardinal role in fostering and supporting entrepreneurship. Favorable macroeconomic conditions are identified and it is shown that adequate policies that contribute to economic diversification and industrialization are likely to expand the investment base of the economy. The book also examines new business concepts and regional integration initiatives meant to enhance West Africa s private sector and analyzes the role of finance in promoting development of private firms and the extent to which corruption impedes economic growth. All chapters are highly relevant to West Africa s current policy challenges and therefore inform the region s ongoing policy formulation. The empirical evidence supporting the policy recommendations is based on both qualitative field observations and advanced quantitative estimation techniques."

External and internal efforts to help developing countries achieve growth and economic stability, based on Western models, have resulted in frustration at best and in the creation of serious new problems without the resolution of existing ones at worst. Professor Gharajedaghi contends that this general failure stems not from a lack of expertise but from a fundamental misconception of the development process. Challenging common assumptions about the nature of national development planning, he proposes practical new approaches aimed at fostering national and local planning initiatives rather than continued reliance on external and traditional development models. This study is the product of more than 25 years of research and experience in planning in developing nations. It presents a flexible theoretical framework that reflects philosophical, methodological, and conceptual aspects of planning and it may be readily adapted to a full range of development situations.

Africans Investing in Africa explores intra-African trade and investment by showing how, where and why Africans invest across Africa; to identify the economic, political and social experiences that hinder or stimulate investment; and to highlight examples of pan-African investors.

This book provides unique insights into the challenges and potential solutions to alleviate poverty in western China. Many people are interested in China's economic and social development; the development of Tibet is an important part of this narrative. Unlike big cities in the east of China, Tibet is still underdeveloped, with severe poverty, relatively poor communications, poor infrastructure, transport links, and limited social services. Using deep and well-researched analyses, learned Chinese scholars share their policy insights, experience and knowledge of the underlying causes and potential solutions to this underdevelopment and poverty. The reader is also provided with firsthand accounts of different people in Tibet, ranging from local government officials to poverty-stricken herdsmen. This book gets at the heart of problems faced by ordinary Tibetans, such as dealing with impacts of natural disasters, lack of education, managing ecological resettlement, and trying to prevent the transmission of intergenerational poverty.Looking at these issues from a theoretical, policy, government and practical perspective, Breaking Out of the Poverty Trap -- Case Studies from the Tibetan Plateau in Yunnan, Qinghai and Gansu covers the full range of issues in the development of the Tibetan Plateau.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of South-South regional trade issues, with a particular focus on sustainably fostering Africa's regional trade agenda. It examines the extent to which South-South regional trade agreements (RTAs) have contributed toward enhancing regional integration and economic expansion in Africa in particular, and in the South in general. The authors recommend new conceptual frameworks, appropriate initiatives, and workable policy recipes to help South-South RTAs enhance Africa's economic transformation trajectory. The book underscores the geo-politics, as well as the opportunities and challenges that emerging economies now represent for Africa in the context of South-South regional trade policy. Readers will learn how Africa can strengthen its regional trade game by securing and building on the positive outcomes of South-South RTAs.

An expert on East European politics and economics analyzes and evaluates Western policies toward the new East European democracies as they struggle to build stable political orders and functioning market economies. He argues that the West must give higher priority to assisting the region and reorient its strategies so as to emphasize the political and administrative dimensions of economic reconstruction. He reviews the economic legacy of past Western policies and of Eastern Europe's previous dependency on the Soviet Union, and then examines in detail the changing East-West trade patterns, the prospect for Western investment and technology transfer, the questions of finance, debt, and foreign aid, and the dilemmas of market reform. Students, scholars, policy analysts, historians, and business people will find this fascinating reading. It is an excellent text for courses in U.S. foreign policy, comparative politics, international political economy, East European and Slavic studies, comparative economics, and international trade and finance.

This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.

How are the economic policies which developing countries adopt selected and how do they change? Who are the key players in economic development policies? Professor Anil Hira answers these questions head on by suggesting new ways of looking at how ideas affect economic policy. He first traces the way that ideas become wedded to interest groups over time, and he interprets the debate over economic development policy as a series of changes in idea-interest networks, often marked by crises. He then looks closely at economic idea entrepreneurs. Through concrete case studies of networks in Latin America, with a focus on Chilean economic policy, Hira explains not only how ideas are introduced, but which ones win out in the economic policy process and why. He introduces the concept of economic knowledge networks to understand groups of economists wedded to certain sets of ideas, such as neoliberalism or structuralism. Economic knowledge networks extend beyond Latin America and can be found in such diverse places as Indonesia and Egypt. Hira identifies the characteristics of these groups and shows how they create political action through their organizational activities and ideas. Hira not only sheds light on how ideas affect economic policy, but also provides an inside story on the groups responsible for the new economic revolution that is sweeping Latin America and transforming the regional economy. An important resource for scholars, students, and policy makers involved with international political economy, emerging economies, and Latin American studies.

This volume combines economics and ecology in a penetrating examination of the natural resources and environmental issues arising from economic growth, development, and change. The author focuses particular attention on the environmental consequences of economic change and argues that the management and conservation of biological resources is a requirement for sustainable economic growth. By setting traditional economic issues within their wider environmental context and covering issues not ordinarily addressed by economists, Tisdell offers an important new perspective on the problem of resource scarcity. He examines the two conflicting viewpoints on the magnitude of the problem--those who argue that technological progress will make scarcity of natural resources less important and those who argue that economic growth can only be expected to intensify scarcity--suggesting a reasonable course of action that will allow acceptable levels of economic growth while protecting important natural resources. Tisdell's work will be useful both as a supplementary text for courses in development or environmental economics and as recommended reading in biology, environmental studies, and ecology programs.

Following an introduction which covers basic issues in resource scarcity, along with growth and development, the author addresses the major economic, ethical, and ecological issues involved in the conservation of biological resources. He goes on to examine concepts and changing views of sustainable economic growth, production, and development. Subsequent chapters explore such topics as conservation in less developed countries and the economic pressures that hinder conservation efforts, differing views on depletable resources as limits to growth, rural-urban migration and its effects on labor allocation, and foreign assistance to resource-poor developing countries. A case study of wildlife on New Zealand's Otago Peninsula is particularly useful in illustrating the economics of biological conservation. Throughout, Tisdell concentrates on providing a reasoned, balanced assessment of the impact of economic growth and change on the natural environment that will be an important resource for proponents on both sides of the environment versus development debate.

Budget deficits are features of over 80 percent of the countries in the world. This book analyzes the macroeconomic impacts of these deficits by taking the approach that their stabilization consequences depend largely on their effects on money supply. The book highlights and compares, between the developing and the industrial countries, the characteristics of revenue and expenditure, the various methods of financing budget deficits and their money supply implications, the stabilization consequences of deficit financing, and various issues of monetary control and liberalization of financial markets. Since the evidence on deficits causing inflation is strongest in the developing countries of the Western Hemisphere, the emphasis of the analysis and the recommended solutions and reforms address the developing economies.

The book analyzes the various financial characteristics of developing economies and the features of the revenue and the expenditure sides of budgets to determine the nature and size of deficits. The analysis proceeds by relating budget deficits to their money supply based on various methods of domestic and foreign finance in the industrial and developing worlds. The book then examines the macroeconomic consequences of large increases in money supply and evaluates policies of inflationary finance. The analysis recommends monetary control measures by providing one of the most comprehensive surveys on the relationship between monetary policy instruments and money supply in economic development. The last chapter analyzes methods for liberalizing markets for government securities and examines the experiences of Taiwan and Korea with open-market operations. Ideal as supplemental reading for courses in international money and finance, economic development, and topics in macroeconomics, this book is an important resource for policymakers involved in issues of deficits and monetary policy.

Inequality is becoming an urgent issue of world politics at the end of the twentieth century. Globalization is not only exacerbating the gap between rich and poor in the world but is also further dividing those states and peoples that have political power and influence from those without. While the powerful shape more `global' rules and norms about investment, military security, environmental and social policy and the like, the less powerful are becoming `rule-takers', often of rules or norms they cannot or will not enforce. The consequences for world politics are profound. The evidence presented in Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics suggests that globalization is creating sharper, more urgent problems for states and international institutions to deal with. Yet at the same time, investigations into eight core areas of world politics suggest that growing inequality is reducing the capacity of governments and existing international organizations to manage these problems effectively. The eight areas surveyed include: international order, international law, welfare and social policy, global justice, regionalism and multilateralism, environmental protection, gender equality, military power, and security.

This volume provides theoretical treatments of remittance on how its development potential is translated into reality. The authors meticulously delve into diverse mechanisms through which migrant communities remit, investigating how recipients engage in the development process in South Asia.

While deforestation continues at an alarming rate around the world, discussions on the range of underlying causes continue. The premise is that studying successful transitions from deforestation to sustainable forestry ex post in Finland can provide novel insights into how deforestation in the tropics might be reduced in the future. Our fundamental question here is why Finland succeeded to stop deforestation for a century ago and why not the same is feasible in the contemporary tropical countries? This book presents a novel integrated theory within which this case study on Finland and contemporary modeling of underlying causes of tropical deforestation are developed. Finland remains the world's second largest net exporter of forest products, while maintaining the highest forest cover in Europe. A transition from deforestation to sustainable industrial forestry took place in Finland during the first part of the 20th century. The underlying causes of this transition are compared via our theory with deforestation in 74 contemporary tropical countries. Both appear similar and support our theory. The interaction of public policies and market institutions has appeared to be critical during this transition. The study's findings suggest that private forest ownership with a continuous increase in the real value of forests and alleviation of poverty under non-corruptive conditions has been a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for this transition. In a parallel way public policies have also proved to be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition in this transition. The conclusion is that socialistic forestry along with corruption is artificially maintaining too low values in the tropical forests. The opportunity cost of sustainable forestry remains too high and deforestation by extensification of agriculture therefore continues. The prevailing socialistic forestry with dominating public forest ownership is by purpose maintaining administratively set low stumpage prices leading to low value of forests, wide corruption and continuous forest degradation and deforestation. An effective remedy - to raise the value of forests - is found to be within forestry.

Over the past two decades, how has urban agriculture changed in sub-Saharan Africa? Is city farming now better integrated into environmental management and city governance? And, looking ahead, how might urban agriculture address the needs of the low-income households and modernizing cities of Africa? In this book, leading specialists in the fields of urban agriculture and urban environment present a unique collection of case studies that examines the growing role of local food production in urban livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. Amongst many issues, the authors probe the changing role of urban agriculture, the risks and benefits of crop-livestock systems, and the opportunities for making locally produced food more easily available and more profitable. Concluding chapters reflect on the policy and governance implications of greater integration of urban natural resources and the built environment, an expanded role for urban agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and the crucial role of women in urban food systems. "African Urban Harvest" will be of interest to decision-makers, development professionals, researchers, academics, and students and educators in urban planning, development studies, African studies, and environmental studies.

The book provides a study of sustainable development in rural China. Because of its huge population and vast land area, this is an important issue not only for China but for the whole world. The research presented is both multi aspect and systematical. It can be likened to a tree where the trunk is the three main aspects: economy, environment and rural society, and the five main branches are agricultural development, industrial pollution, energy security, labor migration and social welfare, and these are the book's five main topics. The research methods of field survey and Sino-Japanese comparison will be of particular interest to readers. The field survey enables readers to become familiar with the environment of rural China. Survey reports and data provide readers with a more profound and vivid understanding of rural China and comparative methods benefit readers from different countries and a variety of cultural backgrounds. For Japanese readers or readers who understand Japanese well, they make China more easily understandable, while Chinese readers gain insights into the country's future and the direction of current developments based on a Japanese frame of reference. For readers outside China and Japan, this book serves as an introduction to Chinese society and also to Japan. Finally, the author provides various paradigmatic scenarios, including default and sustainable. After reading this book, readers will be aware that the earlier and the more we pay attention to these issues, the easier it will be for rural China to achieve a sustainable situation.