376 results for "Economic Development"

The economics of growth

Aghion, Philippe
"The Economics of Growth" first presents the main growth paradigms: the neoclassical model, the AK model, Romer's product variety model, and the Schumpeterian model. The text then builds on the main paradigms to shed light on the dynamic process of growth and development, discussing such topics as club convergence, directed technical change, the transition from Malthusian stagnation to sustained growth, general purpose technologies, and the recent debate over institutions versus human capital as the primary factor in cross-country income differences. Finally, the book focuses on growth policies - analyzing the effects of liberalizing market competition and entry, education policy, trade liberalization, environmental and resource constraints, and stabilization policy - and the methodology of growth policy design. All chapters include literature reviews and problem sets. An appendix covers basic concepts of econometrics.
MIT Press 2009 495 pages

Only the rich can play: how Washington works in the New Gilded Age

Wessel, David
"David Wessel's incredible tale of how Washington works-and why the rich keep getting richer-starts when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur concocts an idea that will save money on his taxes and spins it as a way to ostensibly help poor people. He organizes and pays for an effective lobbying effort that pushes his idea into law with little scrutiny or fine-tuning by congressional or Treasury tax experts-and few safeguards against abuse. With an unbeatable pair of high-profile sponsors, bumper-sticker simplicity and deft political marketing, the Opportunity Zone became an unnoticed part of the 2017 Trump tax bill. The gold rush followed immediately thereafter. In Only the Rich Can Play, Wessel follows the money to see who profited from this plan that was supposed to spur development of blighted areas and help people out of poverty: the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, the Portland (Oregon) Ritz-Carlton, the Mall of America, and self-storage facilities-lucrative areas where the one percent can park money profitably and avoid capital gains taxes. And the best part: unlike other provisions for eliminating capital gains taxes (inheritance, for example) you don't have to die to take advantage of this one. Wessel provides vivid portraits of the proselytizers, political influencers, motivational speakers, consultants, real estate dealmakers, and individual money-seekers looking to take advantage of this twenty-first century bonanza. He looks at places for which Opportunity Zones were supposedly designed (Baltimore, for example) and how little money they've drawn. And he finds a couple of places (Erie, PA) where zones are actually doing what they were supposed to, a lesson on how a better designed program might have helped more left-behind places. Readers will feel outraged as Wessel gives us the gritty reality, the dark underbelly of a system tilted in favor of the few, with the many left out in the cold"--
PublicAffairs 2021 337 pages

Growth theory: an exposition

Solow, Robert M.
From Nobel Laureate Robert M. Solow comes this Second Edition of his classic text, Growth Theory, to which he has added six new chapters. The book begins with the author's Nobel Prize Lecture "Growth Theory and After" (1987) followed by the six, original chapters of the First Edition. The author maintains that basic growth theory is still best summarized in these chapters. The publication of the First Edition in 1970 coincided with a worldwide productivity slowdown; during that time very little work occurred on growth theory. It wasn't until the 1980s that a surge of new research appeared, including the work of Roemer, Lucas, Grossman/Helpman, Aghion, and Howitt. The second half of the book deals with this relatively recent surge, often referred to as "the new endogenous growth theory." As a bridge to the six new chapters, Solow includes an essay entitled "Intermezzo" in which he discusses this transition. The author recasts his model to help the reader compare the relationships among all models; for reasons made explicit in the book, he deals with "AK" theory, convergence, and international cross-section studies rather tersely. The author concludes by drawing some lessons from the new growth theory and suggests where gaps may be filled in future research. Although Solow disagrees strongly with much of the recent research, he is quick to acknowledge some of its outstanding contributions. This Second Edition is essential reading for graduate courses in macroeconomics as well as courses on growth theory at both undergraduate and graduate levels. No other book provides this broad overview of the whole field and its evolution.
Oxford University Press 2000-01 190 pages

Favorites of fortune: technology, growth, and economic development since the Industrial Revolution

Patrice L. R. Higonnet,David S. Landes,Henry Rosovsky
A galaxy of distinguished international economists and historians pit economic history against the shaky assumptions of the classical economic theory of natural growth. Their explanations consider the factors of technology, entrepreneurialism, and paths to economic growth, but each reflects an ideological wave of explanation that has marked the last two hundred years.
Harvard University Press 1991-01 558 pages

American foreign policy

Kissinger, Henry
The initial two essays, "Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy" and "Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," appeared in the original edition of this volume and have been retained as backdrops for fifteen major addresses delivered by Mr. Kissinger over the past four years. The new selections include a statement to Congress that traces the main lines of d�tente policy; a review of the step-by-step process of negotiations in the Middle East; an analysis of efforts to achieve accords, with the Soviet Union on strategic arms limitation without imperiling American national security; a speech to the United Nations on the imperative of establishing a balanced global approach to economic development and resource conservation; several papers that candidly appraise prospects for new ties between the United States and the nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and one that sets forth measures to strengthen the bonds among the industrial democracies. In their scope and detail, these documents constitute a remarkable set of designs, blueprints, and working drawings by a master architect of foreign policy.
Norton 1977 445 pages

Jewry in music: entry to the profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner

Conway, David
David Conway analyses why and how Jews, virtually absent from Western art music until the end of the eighteenth century, came to be represented in all branches of the profession within fifty years as leading figures - not only as composers and performers, but as publishers, impresarios and critics. His study places this process in the context of dynamic economic, political, sociological and technological changes and also of developments in Jewish communities and the Jewish religion itself, in the major cultural centres of Western Europe. Beginning with a review of attitudes to Jews in the arts and an assessment of Jewish music and musical skills, in the age of the Enlightenment, Conway traces the story of growing Jewish involvement with music through the biographies of the famous, the neglected and the forgotten, leading to a new and radical contextualisation of Wagner's infamous 'Judaism in Music'.
Cambridge University Press 2012-01 341 pages

Jewry in music: entry to the profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner

Conway, David
David Conway analyses why and how Jews, virtually absent from Western art music until the end of the eighteenth century, came to be represented in all branches of the profession within fifty years as leading figures - not only as composers and performers, but as publishers, impresarios and critics. His study places this process in the context of dynamic economic, political, sociological and technological changes and also of developments in Jewish communities and the Jewish religion itself, in the major cultural centres of Western Europe. Beginning with a review of attitudes to Jews in the arts and an assessment of Jewish music and musical skills, in the age of the Enlightenment, Conway traces the story of growing Jewish involvement with music through the biographies of the famous, the neglected and the forgotten, leading to a new and radical contextualisation of Wagner's infamous 'Judaism in Music'.
Cambridge University Press 2016 341 pages

Energy Victory Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil

Robert Zubrin
In this compelling argument for a new direction in US energy policy, world-renowned engineer and best-selling author Robert Zubrin lays out a bold plan for breaking the economic stranglehold that the OPEC oil cartel has on our country and the world. Zubrin presents persuasive evidence that our decades-long relationship with OPEC has resulted in the looting of our economy, the corruption of our political system, and now the funding and protection of terrorist regimes and movements that are committed to our destruction.Zubrin's plan is straightforward and practical. He argues that if Congress passed a law requiring that all new cars sold in the USA be flex-fueled-that is, able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels-this one action would destroy the monopoly that the oil cartel has maintained on the globe's transportation fuel supply, opening it up to competition from alcohol fuels produced by farmers worldwide. According to Zubrin's estimates, within three years of enactment, such a regulation would put 50 million cars on the road in the USA capable of running on high-alcohol fuels, and at least an equal number overseas. He further advocates tariff policies favoring alcohol over petroleum imports.Energy Victory offers an exciting vision for a dynamic, new energy policy, which will not only go a long way toward safeguarding homeland security in the future but will also provide solutions for global warming and Third World development.
Globe Pequot Publishing 2009-03-24 357 pages

The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington

Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter, the distinguished historian and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, brilliantly assesses the ideas and contributions of the three major American interpretive historians of the twentieth Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard and V.L. Parrington. These men, whose views of history were shaped in large part by the political battles of the Progressive era, provided the Progressive movement with a usable past and the American liberal mind with a historical tradition. The Progressive Historians is at once a critique of historical thought during this decisive period of American development and an account of how these three writers led American historians into the controversial political world of the twentieth century. Turner, in developing his idea that American democracy is the outcome of the experience of frontier expansion and the settlement of the West, introduced his fellow historians to a set of new concepts and methods, and in doing so doing re-drew the guidelines of American historiography. Beard insisted upon the elitist origins of the Constitution, crusaded for the economic interpretation of history, and ultimately staked his historical reputation on an isolationist view of recent American foreign policy. Parrington emphasized the moral and social functions of literature, and read the history of literature as a history of the national political mind. In recent years, the tide has run against the Progressive historians, as one specialist after another has taken issue with their interpretations. The movement of contemporary historical thought has led to a rediscovery of the complexity of the American past. Although he cannot share the faith of the Progressive historians in the sufficiency of American liberalism as a guide to the modern world, Richard Hofstadter believes we have much to learn about ourselves from a reconsideration of their insights.
Random House Trade Paperbacks 1985-06 471 pages

The rich: from slaves to super-yachts : a 2000-year history

Kampfner, John
From the Orwell Prize shortlisted author of Freedom for Sale, The Richis the fascinating history of how economic elites from ancient Egypt to the present day have gained and spent their money. Starting with Ancient Egypt and Greece and culminating with the oligarchies of modern Russia and China, it compares and contrasts the rich and powerful down the ages and around the world. What unites them? Have the same instincts of entrepreneurship, ambition, vanity, greed and philanthropy applied throughout? As contemporary politicians, economists and the public wrestle with the inequities of our time - the parallel world inhabited by the ultra-wealthy at a time of broader hardship - it is salutary to look to history for explanations. This book synthesises thousands of years of human behaviour and asks the question: is the development of the globalised super-rich over the past twenty years anything new?
Little, Brown an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group 2014 454 pages

The Fools of Chelm and Their History

Isaac Bashevis Singer
Assists investors and economic planners in identifying opportunities for agroindustrial investment and in designing related projects and policies. Agroindustry accounts for the majority of manufacturing activity in the developing world and represents an important first step on the path to industrialization. Many developing country governments have restricted their investment in agroindustrial and other development projects because of high debt levels and restrictions on credit. This trend has made private-sector investment crucial. Yet relatively little has been written to assist investors and economic planners in identifying opportunities for agroindustrial investment or in designing effective projects and policies. This book is an operating manual for who design or manage commercial agroindustrial enterprises. The study addresses three fundamental concerns: * The practical steps that must be taken to identify, analyze, and select components of an enterprise, such as marketing, processing, and raw material supply * Methods for assessing the financial viability of the enterprise * The management, administrative, and planning activities involved in establishing a successful enterprise, taking national development objectives and policies into account. The first part of the study examines the basic characteristics of an agroindustrial enterprise and presents analytical techniques both for investing in such enterprises and for managing them. The second part of the study profiles seven major agroindustrial commodities: rice, oilseeds, animal feeds, fruits and vegetables, sugar, ethanol from sugarcane, and coffee. The profiles trace each commodity from raw material through processing and review the structure of the market for each. This is a handy and reliable reference for agroindustry analysts, investors, and managers and will also be useful to teachers, policymakers, and staff members of development banks and other credit institutions.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) 1988-12-01 64 pages

Forces of production: a social history of industrial automation

Noble, David F.
Focusing on the design and implementation of computer-based automatic machine tools, David F. Noble challenges the idea that technology has a life of its own. Technology has been both a convenient scapegoat and a universal solution, serving to disarm critics, divert attention, depoliticize debate, and dismiss discussion of the fundamental antagonisms and inequalities that continue to beset America. This provocative study of the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry—the heart of a modern industrial economy—explains how dominant institutions like the great corporations, the universities, and the military, along with the ideology of modern engineering shape, the development of technology. Noble shows how the system of "numerical control," perfected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and put into general industrial use, was chosen over competing systems for reasons other than the technical and economic superiority typically advanced by its promoters. Numerical control took shape at an MIT laboratory rather than in a manufacturing setting, and a market for the new technology was created, not by cost-minded producers, but instead by the U. S. Air Force. Competing methods, equally promising, were rejected because they left control of production in the hands of skilled workers, rather than in those of management or programmers. Noble demonstrates that engineering design is influenced by political, economic, managerial, and sociological considerations, while the deployment of equipment—illustrated by a detailed case history of a large General Electric plant in Massachusetts—can become entangled with such matters as labor classification, shop organization, managerial responsibility, and patterns of authority. In its examination of technology as a human, social process, Forces of Production is a path-breaking contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon in American society.
Transaction Publishers 2011 409 pages

Japanese, Nazis & Jews: the Jewish refugee community of Shanghai, 1938-1945

Kranzler, David
Between 1938-41 some 17,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and Poland reached Shanghai, then under Japanese control. Ch. 7 (pp. 169-266), "Japanese Policy vis-à-vis the Jews", explains Japan's unusual behavior in opening the door to Jewish refugees. Describes the influence of the so-called "experts on Jewish affairs" in Japan and their unique approach to antisemitism - to make use of alleged Jewish wealth and influence on behalf of Japan's "New Order". This approach lasted until America's entry into the war when it became unfeasible and Nazi propaganda gained more influence. Discusses immigration restrictions imposed in August 1939, Nazi antisemitic propaganda, and the establishment of a ghetto in 1943 under German instigation. Japan's attitude towards Jews evolved from favorable to highly antagonistic, blaming the Jews for all economic and social ills and for a conspiracy to overthrow the government and dominate the media, aid the communists, and halt Japanese development.
KTAV Pub. House 1976 644 pages

The pill, pygmy chimps, and Degas' horse: the autobiography of Carl Djerassi

Djerassi, Carl
Father of the birth control pill, developer of antihistamines, founder of biomedical companies, teacher of world-class chemists, best-selling novelist.... As The Scientist notes, "Few can match Carl Djerassi's juggling act for success and longevity". Here is Djerassi's remarkable autobiography. Blending vivid descriptions of the lucrative world of drug development with controversial chapters on the politics of contraception and poignant disclosures about his personal life, this book tells the story of one of the most productive and socially conscious chemists working today. The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse tells how Djerassi, while still in his twenties and leading a small team in an obscure laboratory in Mexico City, used a locally grown yam first to synthesize cortisone and then, within twelve months, to create the first steroid effective as a birth control pill. Dubbed for this latter work "the father of the pill", a title he often shares with Gregory Pincus and John Rock, who performed the biological and clinical studies to confirm the pill's efficacy in humans, Djerassi has spent a lifetime thinking and rethinking, discussing and debating, the social, economic, and biological consequences of the changed attitudes toward contraception engendered by the pill. In two riveting chapters entitled "The Pill at Twenty" and "The Pill at Forty: What Now?" Djerassi recounts the fascinating history of the pill's journey from its first days in the laboratory to widespread public use--from being hailed as an agent of the sexual revolution to condemnation as an agent of the new promiscuity, to being accused of being an expression of the scientific community's sexism (Why was there no malebirth control pill?). And then, in a powerful consideration of where the politics of contraception have taken us, he discusses why so few innovations in contraception are being investigated today, and why even fewer are making their way to the public. The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse chronicles Djerassi's many successful careers in science, business, the academy, and the arts (he is a published poet and novelist, as well as the founder of an artists' colony). His growing appreciation for the soft side of science--its human and humane aspects--have long been reflected in the courses he teaches at Stanford, in the plot of his novel, Cantor's Dilemma, and in his decision to found one of the first environmentally aware pesticide companies. In this intellectually challenging book, the reader is let into the fertile mind and psyche of one of the few Renaissance men of twentieth-century science.
Basic Books 1992-04-26 319 pages

The Informational Role of Prices

Sanford J. Grossman
Over the past decade, Sanford Grossman's contributions to the economics ofinformation have significantly altered the way economists think about rational expectations. Herehis articles are collected in one place, providing a uniform framework for understanding how pricesconvey information in securities markets.Grossman elaborates a new model of economic equilibriumthat casts a dual role for prices both as constraints that affect the immediate costs or benefits ofacts and as conveyers of information about the probable future costs and benefits of those acts. Hepoints to the Wall Street panic of October 1987 as an example of the informational role of priceswhere volatility actually represented sophisticated trading strategies by relatively uninformedindividuals.In the first two chapters, Grossman interprets the ideas presented in the articles inlight of recent developments in financial markets, looks at selected contributions to the new andstill expanding literature on the informational role of prices, and introduces the rationalexpectations model of demand price equilibrium.Six chapters then take up the informational role ofprices in competitive stock markets, and future markets (where Grossman's "noisy rationalexpectations" model provides rewards for discovering new information). They look at theimpossibility of informationally efficient markets, the implications of program trading and dynamichedging strategies for stock and futures price volatility, and takeover bids. The last two chaptersconcentrate on the informational role of contracts -- warranties and private disclosure aboutproduct quality, and the implication of unemployment with observable aggregate shocks. Economistscollaborating with Grossman on several chapters include J. E. Stiglitz, Oliver Hart, and EricMaskin.Sanford Grossman is Professor of Finance at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.The Informational Role of Prices is included in the Wicksell Lectures series.
MIT Press 1989-10 218 pages

The Nordic secret: a European story of beauty and freedom

Andersen, Lene
"How do societies go through major technological, economic and structural changes peacefully? The Nordic Secret explores how Denmark, Norway and Sweden went from poor feudal agricultural societies to rich industrialized democracies thanks to the German educational concept of Bildung. The book also investigates the close relationship between Bildung and contemporary developmental psychology, i.e. the concepts of "ego-development" and "transformative learning". The Nordic Secret concludes with a discussion about what we can learn from this positive transformation and how to apply it in the current global crises"-- Publisher description.
Fri Tanke 2017 504 pages

Game-theoretic models of bargaining

Alvin E. Roth
Game-Theoretic Models of Bargaining provides a comprehensive picture of the new developments in bargaining theory. It especially shows the way the use of axiomatic models has been complemented by the new results derived from strategic models. The papers in this volume are edited versions of those given at a conference on Game Theoretic Models of Bargaining held at the University of Pittsburgh. There are two distinct reasons why the study of bargaining is of fundamental importance in economics. The first is that many aspects of economic activity are directly influenced by bargaining between and among individuals, firms, and nations. The second is that bargaining occupies an important place in economic theory, since the 'pure bargaining problem' is at the opposite pole of economic phenomena from the case of 'perfect competition'. This volume is an outgrowth of the renewed interest in the strategic approach to the theory of bargaining and to the general theory of non-cooperative games.
Cambridge University Press 2005-11-03 390 pages

Game-theoretic models of bargaining

Roth, Alvin E.
Game-Theoretic Models of Bargaining provides a comprehensive picture of the new developments in bargaining theory. It especially shows the way the use of axiomatic models has been complemented by the new results derived from strategic models. The papers in this volume are edited versions of those given at a conference on Game Theoretic Models of Bargaining held at the University of Pittsburgh. There are two distinct reasons why the study of bargaining is of fundamental importance in economics. The first is that many aspects of economic activity are directly influenced by bargaining between and among individuals, firms, and nations. The second is that bargaining occupies an important place in economic theory, since the 'pure bargaining problem' is at the opposite pole of economic phenomena from the case of 'perfect competition'. This volume is an outgrowth of the renewed interest in the strategic approach to the theory of bargaining and to the general theory of non-cooperative games.
Cambridge University Press 1985-11-29 390 pages

Stability with growth: macroeconomics, liberalization and development

Stiglitz,JosephE.,1943-
There is a dissatisfaction with the economic policies advocated by many international financial institutions. This book presents an alternative to 'Washington Consensus' neo-liberal economic policies by showing that both macro-economic and liberalization policy must be sensitive to the particular circumstances of developing countries.
Oxford University Press 2006-01 339 pages