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This book considers the principal sources of agreement and
disagreement among policymakers and analysts concerning the current
economic problems of Sub-Saharan Africa. A distinguished collection
of international and African authors, including economists from the
IMF and the World Bank, as well as their critics, addresses the key
policy issues in agriculture, trade, macroeconomic management,
social issues, privatization, external capital flow, and political
economy. An introductory interpretive essay searches for areas of
consensus and identifies those of continuing controversy.
This book considers the principal sources of agreement and
disagreement among policymakers and analysts concerning the current
economic problems of Sub-Saharan Africa. A distinguished collection
of international and African authors, including economists from the
IMF and the World Bank, as well as their critics, addresses the key
policy issues in agriculture, trade, macroeconomic management,
social issues, privatization, external capital flow, and political
economy. An introductory interpretive essay searches for areas of
consensus and identifies those of continuing controversy.
Arguing that several orthodox adjustment policies are still
incongruent with long-term development in Africa, this book goes on
to discuss a development strategy which could lead to a much
awaited economic recovery and improvement in social conditions in
Africa in the 1990s drawing its conclusions from a general
theoretical discussion of the matter and the results of five
specific national case studies carried out in Burkina Faso, Niger,
Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.;Giovanni Andrea Cornia is the
co-author or co-editor of "The Impact of World Recession on
Children", "Adjustment With a Human Face" and "Children and the
Transition to the Market Economy". Rolph Van der Hoeven is the
author of "Planning for Basic Needs: A Soft Option or a Solid
Policy?", co-author of "Basic Needs in Development Planning" and
co-editor of "World Recession and Global Interdependence".
While the design of adjustment policies in the latter part of the
1980s has generally shown greater attention to their impact on
growth and social implications, this book argues that several
orthodox adjustment policies are still incongruent with long-term
development in Africa. It goes on to discuss a development strategy
which could lead to a much awaited economic recovery and
improvement in social conditions in Africa in the 1990s drawing its
conclusions from a general theoretical discussion and national
case-studies.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open
Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. The
global economic crisis of 2008-2009 exposed systemic failings at
the core of economic policy making worldwide. The crisis came on
top of several other crises, including skyrocketing and highly
volatile world food and energy prices and climate change. This book
argues that new policy approaches are needed to address such
devastating global development challenges and to avoid the
potentially catastrophic consequences to livelihoods worldwide that
would result from present approaches. The contributors to the book
are independent development experts, brought together by the UN to
identify a development strategy capable of promoting a broad-based
economic recovery and at the same time guaranteeing social equity
and environmental sustainability both within countries and
internationally. This new development approach seeks to promote the
reforms needed to improve global governance, providing a more
equitable distribution of global public goods. The contributors
offer a critical evaluation of past development experiences and
report on their creative search for new and well-thought out
answers for the future. They suggest that economic progress, fairer
societies and environmental sustainability can be compatible
objectives, but only when pursued simultaneously by all.
The Macroeconomics of Developing Countries provides a comprehensive
discussion of the exogenous factors and macroeconomic policies that
affect the business cycle, long term growth, and distribution of
income in developing countries. It examines countries dependent on
natural resources and affected by supply rigidities in agriculture.
They also feature dualistic markets, a large informal sector, rapid
population growth, a vulnerable export sector, and chronic
dependence on a volatile global finance. The Macroeconomics of
Developing Countries uses these examples to analyse the impact of
stablization and adjustment politices on growth, inequality, and
poverty. Despite the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals
there is little consensus on how macroeconomic policies can be
consistent with these objectives. The Macroeconomics of Developing
Countries demonstrates that a critical application of standard
models to developing countries can generate erroneous results and
induce the adoption of incorrect policy. In order to address this,
it discusses the key structural differences between advanced and
developing countries in order to justify the construction of
alternative models.
The volume aims to document and explain the sizeable decline of
income inequality that has taken place in Latin America during the
2000s. It does so through an exploration of inequality changes in
six representative countries, and ten policy chapters dealing with
macroeconomics, foreign trade, taxation, labour market, human
capital formation, and social assistance, which point to the
emergence of a 'new policy model'. The volume addresses a major
issue in economic development with profound implications for many
developing regions and those OECD countries mired in a long-lasting
financial crisis and economic stagnation. For at least the last
quarter of the twentieth century, Latin America suffered from low
growth, rising inequality, and frequent financial crises. However,
since the turn of the century, growth accelerated, inequality
declined, poverty fell, and macroeconomic stability improved, all
this in parallel to the spread of centre-left political regimes in
three quarters of the region. This inequality decline has taken
many by surprise as, for a long time, the region has been a symbol
of a deeply entrenched unequal distribution of assets, incomes, and
opportunities, limited or no state redistribution, and a deeply
embedded authoritarianism enforcing an unjust status quo. The
recent Latin American experience is particularly valuable as
inequality was reduced under open economy conditions and in a
period of intensifying global integration, which have often been
considered as a source of rising inequality. In this sense, however
imperfect, the recent Latin American experience may be of interest
to countries completing their transition to the market and liberal
democracy (as in the former socialist countries of Europe), facing
a political transition (as those affected by the Arab Spring,
Myanmar and countries in sub-Saharan Africa), or recording rises in
inequality and social tensions in spite of rapid economic growth
(as in China and India). Until recently there was not much
agreement on the drivers of the inequality decline in the region,
which was attributed to changes in the supply/demand of skilled
workers, improvements in terms of trade, the spread of social
assistance schemes, or 'luck'. In this respect, the volume offers
the first scholarly and systematic exploration of this unexpected
change. As income inequality has been rising and is currently
rising in many parts of the world, a good understanding of the
Latin American experience over the 2000s is a topic that will
inform and generate a lot of attention.
This book is the first comprehensive assessment of the mortality crisis which has affected most economies in transition but which has remained so far largely unexplained. It reconciles long-term and short-term explanations of the crisis and makes use of special micro data-sets never used before. By providing a rigorous multidisciplinary analysis of this upsurge in mortality rates, the book hopes to contribute to the launch of vigorous policies to tackle this societal problem.
Within-country income inequality has risen since the early 1980s in
most of the OECD, all transitional, and many developing countries.
More recently, inequality has risen also in India and nations
affected by the Asian crisis. Altogether, over the last twenty
years, inequality worsened in 70 per cent of the 73 countries
analysed in this volume, with the Gini index rising by over five
points in half of them. In several cases, the Gini index follows a
U-shaped pattern, with the turn-around point located between the
late 1970s and early 1990s. Where the shift towards liberalization
and globalization was concluded, the right arm of the U stabilized
at the 'steady state level of inequality' typical of the new policy
regime, as observed in the UK after 1990. Mainstream theory
focusing on rises in wage differentials by skill caused by either
North-South trade, migration, or technological change poorly
explains the recent rise in income inequality. Likewise, while the
traditional causes of income polarization-high land concentration,
unequal access to education, the urban bias, the 'curse of natural
resources'-still account for much of cross-country variation in
income inequality, they cannot explain its recent rise. This volume
suggests that the recent rise in income inequality was caused to a
considerable extent by a policy-driven worsening in factorial
income distribution, wage spread and spatial inequality. In this
regard, the volume discusses the distributive impact of reforms in
trade and financial liberalization, taxation, public expenditure,
safety nets, and labour markets. The volume thus represents one of
the first attempts to analyse systematically the relation between
policy changes inspired by liberalization and globalization and
income inequality. It suggests that capital account liberalization
appears to have had-on average-the strongest disequalizing effect,
followed by domestic financial liberalization, labour market
deregulation, and tax reform. Trade liberalization had unclear
effects, while public expenditure reform often had positive
effects.
Within-country income inequality has risen since the early 1980s in
most of the OECD, all transitional, and many developing countries.
More recently, inequality has risen also in India and nations
affected by the Asian crisis. Altogether, over the last twenty
years, inequality worsened in 70 per cent of the 73 countries
analysed in this volume, with the Gini index rising by over five
points in half of them. In several cases, the Gini index follows a
U-shaped pattern, with the turn-around point located between the
late 1970s and early 1990s. Where the shift towards liberalization
and globalization was concluded, the right arm of the U stabilized
at the 'steady state level of inequality' typical of the new policy
regime, as observed in the UK after 1990. Mainstream theory
focusing on rises in wage differentials by skill caused by either
North-South trade, migration, or technological change poorly
explains the recent rise in income inequality. Likewise, while the
traditional causes of income polarization-high land concentration,
unequal access to education, the urban bias, the 'curse of natural
resources'-still account for much of cross-country variation in
income inequality, they cannot explain its recent rise. This volume
suggests that the recent rise in income inequality was caused to a
considerable extent by a policy-driven worsening in factorial
income distribution, wage spread and spatial inequality. In this
regard, the volume discusses the distributive impact of reforms in
trade and financial liberalization, taxation, public expenditure,
safety nets, and labour markets. The volume thus represents one of
the first attempts to analyse systematically the relation between
policy changes inspired by liberalization and globalization and
income inequality. It suggests that capital account liberalization
appears to have had-on average-the strongest disequalizing effect,
followed by domestic financial liberalization, labour market
deregulation, and tax reform. Trade liberalization had unclear
effects, while public expenditure reform often had positive
effects.
After three decades of remarkable progress, improvements in the
welfare of children and other vulnerable groups in many parts of
the world began to falter in the 1980s. This study draws on UNICEF
work and experience of recent years to illustrate the extent of the
current crisis and point to ways to alleviate the effects caused by
economic adjustment. Volume 1 developed a strategy for protecting
vulnerable populations during adjustment. The strategy, "Adjustment
with a Human Face", combines the promotion of economic growth,
protection of the vulnerable, and macro-economic adjustment. This
volume, volume 2, examines in closer detail the experiences of the
ten countries used as the basis for this strategy. The successes of
governments in protecting vulnerable groups in South Korea,
Botswana, Zimbabwe and Peru are appraised and contrasted with the
failures in Brazil, Ghana, Jamaica, and the Philippines. Sri Lanka
and Chile are also considered. The book should be of interest to
students of welfare and economic development, and officials and
politicians who face the problems of adjustment.
Following three decades of progress, improvements in the welfare of
children and other vulnerable groups worldwide began to falter in
the mid-1970s. World recession, and in particular the debt crisis
in Latin America and African famine, have seriously affected
economic development programs in less developed countries. At the
same time, however, large-scale health programs have had a
noticeable impact. This study both illustrates the extent of the
current crisis and points to the successes to show how welfare
policies can--and must--become part of national planning even when
the economy is in crisis.
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