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162 books match the query 'Economics & Trade' and 4 start with d

cover of Dead in the Water: Global Lessons from the World Bank's Model Hydropower Project in Laos

Dead in the Water

Global Lessons from the World Bank's Model Hydropower Project in Laos

Edited by Bruce Shoemaker and William Robichaud; foreword by Yos Santasombat; afterword by Philip Hirsch

University of Wisconsin Press, 2019

For decades, large dam projects have been undertaken by both nations and international agencies with the aim of doing good: preventing floods, bringing electricity to rural populations, producing revenues for poor countries, and more. But time after time, the social, economic, and environmental costs have outweighed the benefits of the dams, sometimes to a disastrous degree. In this volume, a diverse group of experts—involved for years with the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos—issue an urgent call for critical reassessment of the approach to, and rationale for, these kinds of large infrastructure projects in developing countries.

In the 2000s, as the World Bank was reeling from revelations of past hydropower failures, it nonetheless promoted the enormous Nam Theun 2 project. NT2, the Bank believed, offered a new, wiser model of dam development that would alleviate poverty, protect the environment, engage locally affected people in a transparent fashion, and stimulate political transformation. This was a tall order. For the first time, this book shows in detail why, despite assertions of success from the World Bank and other agencies involved in the project, the dam's true story has been one of substantial loss for affected villagers and the regional environment. Nam Theun 2 is an important case study that illustrates much broader problems of global development policy.
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cover of Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Bumba Mukherjee

University of Chicago Press, 2016

Since the 1970s, two major trends have emerged among developing countries: the rise of new democracies and the rush to free trade. For some, the confluence of these events suggests that a free-market economy complements a fledgling democracy. Others argue that the two are inherently incompatible and that exposure to economic globalization actually jeopardizes new democracies. Which view is correct? Bumba Mukherjee argues that the reality of how democracy and trade policy unravel in developing countries is more nuanced than either account.

Mukherjee offers the first comprehensive cross-national framework for identifying the specific economic conditions that influence trade policy in developing countries. Laying out the causes of variation in trade policy in four developing or recently developed countries—Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa—he argues persuasively that changing political interactions among parties, party leaders, and the labor market are often key to trade policy outcome. For instance, if workers are in a position to benefit from opening up to trade, party leaders in turn support trade reforms by decreasing tariffs and other trade barriers.

At a time when discussions about the stability of new democracies are at the forefront, Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries provides invaluable insight into the conditions needed for a democracy to survive in the developing world in the context of globalization.
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cover of Despite Good Intentions: Why Development Assistance to the Third World Has Failed

Despite Good Intentions

Why Development Assistance to the Third World Has Failed

Thomas W. Dichter

University of Massachusetts Press, 2003

For more than thirty-five years, Thomas W. Dichter has worked in the field of international development, managing and evaluating projects for nongovernmental organizations, directing a Peace Corps country program, and serving as a consultant for such agencies as USAID, UNDP, and the World Bank. On the basis of this extensive and varied experience, he has become an outspoken critic of what he terms the “international poverty alleviation industry.” He believes that efforts to reduce world poverty have been well-intentioned but largely ineffective. On the whole, the development industry has failed to serve the needs of the people it has sought to help. 

To make his case, Dichter reviews the major trends in development assistance from the 1960s through the 1990s, illustrating his analysis with eighteen short stories based on his own experiences in the field. The analytic chapters are thus grounded in the daily life of development workers as described in the stories. 

Dichter shows how development organizations have often become caught up in their own self-perpetuation and in public relations efforts designed to create an illusion of effectiveness. Tracing the evolution of the role of money (as opposed to ideas) in development assistance, he suggests how financial imperatives have reinforced the tendency to sponsor time-bound projects, creating a dependency among aid recipients. He also examines the rise of careerism and increased bureaucratization in the industry, arguing that assistance efforts have become disconnected from important lessons learned on the ground, and often lessons of world history. 

In the end, Dichter calls for a more light-handed and artful approach to development assistance, with fewer agencies and experts involved. His stance is pragmatic, rather than ideological or political. What matters, he says, is what works, and the current practices of the development industry are simply not effective.

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cover of Domestic Choices, International Markets: Dismantling National Barriers and Liberalizing Securities Markets

Domestic Choices, International Markets

Dismantling National Barriers and Liberalizing Securities Markets

Andrew C. Sobel

University of Michigan Press, 1994

The internationalization of financial markets moved to center stage in the international political economy during the 1980s. These markets affect trade, investment, venture enterprises, growth, and competitiveness. Domestic Choices, International Markets uses the internationalization and liberalization of securities markets to examine interdependence, leadership, and the mechanisms of change in an increasingly global political economy.During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States began relaxing government oversight of the security markets, promoting price competition, lowering national barriers, dismantling barriers between individual sectors of the financial industry, encouraging innovation, and easing international capital flows. The United Kingdom and Japan soon adopted similar policies, thereby transforming markets in New York, London, and Tokyo. Yet during this time, the United States’ leadership in international finance was seen to be waning. Why did Japan and the United Kingdom follow the United States’ lead so completely and quickly?Most emphasize the interdependence of the world’s financial markets to explain this phenomenon. If this were the case, though, one would expect regulation and transaction costs to converge across markets by competitive deregulation. This has not happened. Significantly, the markets have remained overwhelmingly national with only a modest increase in international activity. In an alternate explanation, Andrew Sobel argues that opening up national doors was really a secondary consequence of policy competitions among sectors of the domestic financial services industry. Changes that occurred earlier in the United States served as examples and constrained the range of choices considered by policy makers in other nations. The author shows how information and reputation networks award disproportionate influence to U.S. actors and institutions. Thus U.S. leadership persists.
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