Cases in economic development : projects, policies and strategies

This book is motivated by a simple premise: the experience of develop ment is so remote from that of the classroom that every possible aid must be used to enable students to understand it. The cases in this book-on project analysis, sectoral planning and macroeconomic policies place the student in the midst of vital development contro versies, policy struggles that should ring true to those who have been involved. They were developed as the basis for a year-long graduate course in economic analysis for decision-making at Harvard University, and are sophisticated enough to interest advanced students and experi enced policy analysts. If used as supplementary exercises in introductory courses, the cases can give new students the feel of battle, some sense of being involved.

It may seem suprising that, in order to introduce realism and speci ficity, we have invented an imaginary country, Beracia, and set all the cases there. We have several reasons for approaching reality through fiction. In order to simulate actual planning experience, a range of analytical issues must be set in a single economy. This helps students appreciate that each development problem is part of a tightly tied knot; oosening a single loop affects the tautness of all others. If students analyze agricultural investment in Ghana and a balance-of-payments crisis in Colombia, they are likely to miss the essential connections between breaking structural barriers to cash crop production and promoting export growth. These cases build upon each other, so that students gain most by working through several of them and thereby accumulating a knowledge of the economy.