Cynthia Taft Morris

A Factor Analysis of The Interrelationship Between Social and Political Variables and Per Capita Gross Naitonal Product

I. Introduction, 555. — II. Choice of social and political variables, 557. III. Definition of variables and method of classification, 558. — IV. The factor analysis: results and interpretation, 561. — V. Regional differences in the interrelationship between per capita GNP and social and political influences, 569. — VI. Summary and conclusion, 576.

A Quantitative Study of Social and Political Determinants of Fertility

The presence of a significant relationship between fertility rates and socio-political environment is well known; however, precise indications of the magnitudes involved have been lacking. In this paper, an attempt is made to gain some semi-quantitative insights into the influence upon fertility of various types of social and political change. Purely demographic variables have been omitted from the analysis in order to test the relative quantitative importance of selected aspects of the transformation of institutions and values associated with economic development in generating attitudes favorable to family limitation.

The Derivation of Cardinal Scales from Ordinal Data: An Application of Multidimensional Scaling to Measure Levels of National Development

The construction of quantitative measures of national capacity to develop along a broad front is desirable to facilitate investigation of the interactions involved in the development process and to improve the design of development strategies. Broad measures of development capacity provide a better focus than do narrow ones for systematic study of the empirical regularities characterising economic growth and furnish an improved basis for the formulation of comprehensive theories identifying critical interdependencies among economic, social, and political aspects of development. They also facilitate integrated approaches to development planning by making possible quantitative evaluation of the joint impact of social and political as well as economic influences on development.

The Role of Institutional Influences in Patterns of Agricultural Development in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Cross-Section Quantitative Study

In this paper we stratify a sample of 24 countries by the role of agriculture in industrial growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and focus on systematic differences in the nature and strength of the interactions of institutional with agricultural and industrial change. A novel technique, disjoint principal components models, is applied to categorized data representing 35 facets of social, economic, and political structure and institutions. The results stress the systematic variations in the impact of land institutions among countries with different levels and structures of development. They also underline the critical role of social and political forces in differentiating among paths of economic change. Finally, they highlight the need for cross-section studies using institutional data to understand better the complexity of institutional constraints and influences which often vary little in a given national environment.

How Fast and Why Did Early Capitalism Benefit the Majority

How long did it take for early rapid capitalist transformations to benefit the majority of the population? This essay examines three presumed success cases, concluding that rapid capitalist development took at least five decades to benefit the majority. A neglected political force for success was the effectiveness of local public and quasi-public institutions in creating wide networks of transportation and other public investments responsive to changing market requirements. Economists today should pay close attention to distributional benefits and local government effectiveness before urging western brands of capitalism on countries where failures to benefit the majority threaten severe political instability.

3 – Patterns of Economic Growth, 1850–1914, or Chenery-Syrquin in Historical Perspective*

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the Chenery–Syrquin patterns of economic growth in historical perspective during the nineteenth century. The conceptual framework of the Chenery–Syrquin statistical analysis is based on a reduced-form model of the interactions between structural changes in the composition of demand, on the one hand, and supply responses, on the other. In reduced form, the changes in both demand and supply can be represented as functions of per capita income and population. During the period under study, 1850–1914, the expansion of foreign trade and investment was spectacular and the increase in colonial empires was striking. The economically more advanced nations of Western Europe industrialized rapidly and expanded their trade and investment throughout the world. Sharp declines in shipping costs, with the introduction of steamships and the development of refrigeration, contributed to an unprecedented increase in the flow of food and raw materials from the far corners of the world to European markets, with striking consequences for the pace and structure of European growth. The nineteenth-century pattern of economic growth of the successful industrializers was more balanced than that of the average developing country: agricultural technology and productivity improved before or with industrial technology and productivity. There had been considerable progress in industrialization in the average country in the sample: cotton spinning and weaving had become predominantly mechanized; factories existed in many consumer goods industries; and a few specialized machines were being produced. However, industry was still less than 20% of GNP.