Development Perspectives For The 1990s

The most pressing problem for most developing countries is how to reverse the adverse trends of the 1980s and create the conditions for sustainable development. The contributors to this volume bring a great variety of experience, background and interest to bear on this issue. Considerable attention is given to the design of appropriate structural adjustment programmes and the role of debt reduction, food aid and the European Community in this context. The need for an adaptive evolutionary approach to problems of development is, perhaps, the central theme to the volume.

The 1990s was a decade of historical significance with numerous and remarkable changes. It was also a time of considerable reforms that strengthened the policy framework in a large number of countries. Yet the resulting growth experiences of developing countries have been extremely varied and often below expectations. What have we learned from this experience? And how can these lessons be applied to the challenges we face in the new millennium? Development Challenges in the 1990s brings together the insights and experiences of some of the world's leading policymakers and global thought leaders, individuals who have had substantial influence on the policy reforms and development strategies in their native countries. Sharing their unique perspectives, these 'practitioners of development' explain the reasons for the uneven outcomes of the 1990s and, with the benefit of hindsight, draw relevant lessons for the future. Essays by leading global economists cover a wide range of topics, from the Washington Consensus as a policy prescription for development to the successes and failures of post-Communist transition countries. Those interested in economics, political science, and international studies will find much to think about in this challenging collection. Contributors include: Lawrence H. Summers, Leszek Balcerowicz, James Bradford Long, Kwesi Botchwey, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Yegor Gaidar, Alejandro Foxley, Zhou Xiaochuan, Montek Ahluwalia, John Williamson, Eduardo Aninat, Mario Blejer, and Kemal Dervis.

Presented to the Eighth Session of the Joint Conference of African Planners, Statisticians and Demographers, Addis Ababa, 21-26 March 1994 (E/ECA/PSD.8/9).

Can significant advances in development occur after adolescence? What are the highest possible states or stages of human development and how can they be realized? These and related critical issues are addressed in this volume by leading researchers and theorists in adult development. How we conceive of the endpoint, or highest state of development is crucial because it shapes our understanding of the direction, possibilities, and mechanisms of human growth. Even a decade ago, most psychologists believed that qualitative advances in development did not occur after adolescence. Based on recent research on adults, however, psychologists now question whether growth of fundamental human capacities necessarily culminates prior to adulthood. This new volume explores a variety of endpoints beyond the ordinarily proposed limits of human development. In addition to describing advanced forms of cognitive functioning , contributors also discuss other domains integral to adult growth--including affective, moral, self, and consciousness development.

The 1990s were an extraordinary, contradictory, fascinating period of economic development, one evoking numerous historical parallels. But the 1990s are far from being well understood and their meaning for the future remains open to debate. In this volume, world-class economic historians analyze the growth of the world economy, globalization and its implications for domestic and international policy, the sources and sustainability of productivity growth in the USA, the causes of sluggish growth in Europe and Japan, comparisons of the Information Technologies revolution with previous innovation waves, the bubble and burst in asset prices and their impacts on the real economy, the effects of trade and factor mobility on the global distribution of income, and the changes in the welfare state, regulation, and macro-policy making. Leading scholars place the 1990s in a fuller long-run global context, offering insights into what lies ahead for the world economy in the twenty-first century.

Developing countries typically have wage rates that are a small fraction of those in developed countries. Trade theories traditionally attributed this difference to two factors: the relative abundance of the labor supply in the two countries and the relative value of the goods produced. These factors, however, inadequately explain the full differential in almost every comparison of developed and developing countries since the second World War. Providing an important and original perspective for understanding both the development process and policies aimed at raising the standard of living in poorer nations, Perspectives on Trade and Development gathers sixteen of Anne O. Krueger's most important essays on international trade and development economics. Her essays discuss the relationships between trade strategies and development; the links between factor endowments, developing countries' policies, and trade strategies in terms of their growth; the role of economic policy in development; and the international economic environment in which development efforts are taking place. Her analyses are extended to trade and development policies generally, and account for a substantial part of the residue unexplained by past theories. This insightful contribution by an influential scholar will be essential reading for all scholars of trade and development.