Waves of modernizing forces, such as the commercialization of new technology, have been pressing major change upon rural communities in the Third World. But has modernization created greater poverty and inequality? A data set generated from eleven surveys during 1966-87 in a typical rice village in the Philippines, illustrates a pattern of socio economic change shared by many lowland rice areas in the Philippines as well as in other Asian economies. The authors present the lessons drawn from 30 years of empirical research.

The International Economic Association was foremost in reviving professional economists' concern with institutions and their impact in publications such as Economic Institutions in a Dynamic Society (1989). This volume concentrates on the states whose development has been characterised as the 'East Asian miracle' in the light of the performance of other economies starting from similarly low income levels, including India, China, African states - especially Nigeria - and Latin American countries including Brazil. This comprehensive comparative survey in economic history demonstrates the external shocks and interacting domestic forces which constituted the growth dynamic. Nobel Laureates Kenneth Arrow and Douglass North and past President of the IEA the late Michael Bruno are among the thirty-four highly distinguished specialist contributors.