Globalisation and the developing economies

Universities in developing countries often face severe resource constraints, making it difficult for them to stock their libraries with the latest books and journals, and to attract and retain faculty who are abreast of current trends in research. In order to meet this perceived gap, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) funded a conference at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Calcutta, at which papers were presented by specialists on various aspects of development. This volume comprises substantially updated and revised versions of those papers, in which the authors show how recent theoretical techniques and statistical analyses can illuminate a wide range of important issues in developing countries. The volume begins with case studies of economic reforms in Russia, Korea and Malaysia, each in its own way an example of what can go wrong with simplistic prescriptions advocating either free markets or controls independent of the institutional context. These chapters lead into models of exchange rate behaviour and balance of payments crises, an area of contemporary concern. Other chapters examine recent theoretical treatments of international trade in relation to cumulative patterns of development and underdevelopment, international labour mobility and remittances. Two largely statistical chapters come up with findings that contribute new and disturbing insights to two long-running debates, one on the deterioration of developing countries' terms of trade and the other on the weak link between incomes and nutrition in India. A final chapter reviews various analytical perspectives on the family and fertility in developing countries.

Apart from acquainting readers with recent techniques and trends, the essays also point to possible directions for future research. The book should thus be of interest to teachers and students of economics and development.