0.1 Economic development is about all of economics  (Page 29/14)

Economic Development is about all of economics; Micro, Macro, Trade, Public Finance, Monetary Economics, Econometrics, Environmental Economics, Human Capital, and much more. Economic development is mainly concerned with developing countries. These are now called “emerging” countries. Lately, concern has also focused on “submerging” countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and perhaps (we hope not) Italy and France. However, chapters in this book do draw a large number of lessons from now developed nations, such as U.S., Japan, Germany and Australia.

The approach of this book

Primary focus - using the economics you have learned.

A major theme of this book is that there is no economics for Europe and another for Africa — there is no economics for the U.S. and another for Latin America.

• The author’s half-century of experience in 30 nations from the U.S. and Canada to Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Mid East, Africa and Latin America has led him to this view.
• Understand then, that we do well to use the same “good” economics for rich and poor nations, rather than the “not-so-good” economics that has guided North Korea, the old Soviet Union, India before 1980s.

But, one thing that many economists forget or ignore (or don’t know):

• We must always recognize that different institutional settings and different cultural traditions in different countries require resourcefulness in the use of “good economics”.
• What works well in some countries, may not work so well in another.
• Economics does not by itself explain everything about the past, present and future of either developed or emerging societies.

A caveat for the reader

The study of economic growth and development involves complex issues involving almost all subfields of the discipline of economics, including not merely micro and macroeconomics, but public finance, the economics of education and public health, monetary economics, international trade as well as demographic economics, and environmental economics.

Readers who expect a neat, compartmentalized approach to growth and development will not find it in this collection, because the topics presented are tightly inter-related.

The concept of human capital and its implications for growth illustrates this point in boldface. Human capital formation, especially in the 21 ^st century, is inextricably linked not only to education and public health, but technological change, fertility, women in economic development, income distribution, institutional change and even international trade. For this reason, human capital formation is covered not in one or two chapters, but is interspersed in multiple chapters through the book. This will be especially obvious in the first eight chapters after this one, where human capital is featured most prominently. Readers searching for comprehensive treatment of this important set of topics in one of two chapters will search in vain.

The aims of this book

• It is NOT for those with a narrow view of what economics is all about.
• It is NOT for those who shrink from policy applications of “good” economics.
• It is NOT for those who are economic determinists.
• It is NOT for those NOT interested in real world examples of economics in action, both when it succeeds and when it messes up.
• This is NOT a book about model building , but we will examine models.
• This book IS for those who find economics useful, and even satisfying.
• The book IS for those seeking to understand a very rapidly changing global economy. Example: There have been more changes in world economies in the past decade than in the previous four decades.
• This book IS for those who are open to the use of both market and governmental mechanisms for rectifying and sometimes resolving — major problems in sustainable growth, poverty reduction and economic opportunity.
• Finally, readers will benefit more from the book if they also know and appreciate HISTORY .