I. M. D. Little

Boom, crisis, and adjustment : the macroeconomic experience of developing countries

Boon, Crisis, and Adjustment reviews the macroeconomic experiences of eighteen developing countries from 1974 to 1989. The authors address why the experiences and policy reactions have differed among the countries, and how their individual growth rates were affected by these policy reactions.

Concentration in British Industry. An Empirical Study of the Structure of Industrial Production, 1935-51.

List of tables List of figures Preface General introduction and summary of findings Part I. Concepts and Methodology: 1. Concentration and the census trade 2. Concentration, industry structure and plant structure 3. Concentration and monopoly power Part II. Concentration and Industry Structure in 1951: 4. Concentration in 1951 5. Industry structure in 1951 6. Plant structure in 1951 7. Statistical analysis of factors relating to concentration 8. The growth of leading firms in the high-concentration trades 9. Factors contributing to the maintenance of high concentration Part III. Changes in Concentration, 1935-51: 10. Changes in concentration: some problems of methodology 11. Changes in concentration and factors relating to concentration, 1935-51 12. Factors contributing to changes in concentration, 1935-51 Part IV. Case-Studies of Trades with Changes in Concentration, 1935-51: 13. Introduction to industry case-studies 14. Trades with increased concentration 15. Trades with decreased concentration Appendices General index Index of companies Index of trades.

Macroeconomic Management in India, 1964–94

Jagdish Bhagwati’s work on India is surely one of the highlights of his remarkable contribution to economics. As a prescient, searching and constructive critic of India’s inward-looking development strategy, he is an intellectual progenitor of the country’s current drive to reform. The main focus of his work has been on issues of trade and resource allocation.1 Indeed, we have several times heard him declare that he is no macroeconomist and, amazingly enough, given the multiplicity of his writings, it seems to be true that he has largely avoided the subject. We have been less wise, but hope that he will consider this essay an appropriate way to honour him.2

On Measuring the Value of Private Direct Overseas Investment

There are few subjects more charged with emotion than the value of private investment to developing countries: and the Pearson Commission (later referred to as ‘Pearson’) as well as the D.A.C. have been accused of presenting it in too favourable a light. There were a number of papers, presented to the recent Columbia Conference on Internal Economic Development, which reacted strongly.

Welfare Criteria, Distribution, and Cost–Benefit Analysis

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the relation welfare criteria, distribution, and cost-benefit analysis. Scitovsky (1941) quickly introduced the concept of distribution into the subject of how one determined whether there was a change in welfare, the national product, real income, etc. The application of welfare economics in a piecemeal manner, that is, the application of welfare economics, has come to be called social cost benefit (SCB) analysis. What seems to be common to all SCB analyses is the use of the Kaldor–Hicks criterion. The Scitovsky double criterion may be employed, but this is rare. Actual SCB analyses seemingly seldom describe the gainers and losers at all precisely and seldom ascribe a monetary value to their gains or losses. This sort of application of welfare economics can be tolerably well described as an application of the Little criterion. The dual criterion of a compensation test plus a distributional judgment (the Little criterion) will continue to be employed as it uses less information, and in practice, that is important.

Ethics, Economics, and Politics: Principles of Public Policy

This book studies the interfaces of ethics, economics, and politics. Public policy issues involve all three of these subjects. Although it may be seen as suggesting the nucleus of a joint university course, the book is accessible to and should interest all those concerned with political decisions. Any such decision needs a criterion for judging whether one action or outcome is better than another. Even a dictator must to some extent be concerned about the economic elfare of the citizens; and a democratic government more so. But how is a persons economic welfare to be judged? Furthermore, any political decision affects the economic welfare of different people differently. How then is the welfare of a community to be judged? This is an ethical question. Underlying any coherent public policy there must be a relevant moral code. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0199257043/toc.html

Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State.

The most general attribute that distinguishes government from other organizations is its coervice role, circumscribing the activities of all of its citizens and the other inhabitants of its territories. Laws and their enforcement require members of the public to behave in certain way and preclude them from engaging in actions that some of them would otherwise undertake. Explicitly in a democracy and implicitly in any government that operates under some sort of social contract, this means that the governed must have chosen voluntarily to be subjected to coercion that prevents them from behaving as they would otherwise choose to do. Such a paradoxical arrangement nevertheless can constitute rational behavior on the part of the public. The theory of the state, in essence, entails resolution of this paradox. It will be shown that welfare economics deals with an entirely parallel issue. Indeed, the policy measures that welfare theory suggests are particular examples of coercive public sector acts that it would serve the interests of the public to support and accept voluntarily. The logic of the analysis applies to issues as varied as taxation, finance of national defense, counter-cyclical measures and programs to counteract congestion problems in road traffic and urban dwellings, among many others.