Development Economics: From Poverty to Prosperity

Author: (Japanese) Yujiro Hayashi / Li Zhou
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: This book is a comprehensive and logically rigorous monograph in development economics, arranged in the order of interest to professionals. It can also serve as a textbook for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students. The book poses a significant question: Why have only a few countries in the world achieved high levels of wealth, and why are only a handful of developing countries approaching this level, while most countries remain trapped in poverty and stagnation? A clear factor contributing to the global disparity is the differing abilities to develop and adopt advanced technology. So, why is the number of developing countries that have entered the trajectory of narrowing the productivity gap with developed countries so limited? A possible answer is that low-income countries, constrained by their social and cultural factors, struggle to adapt appropriate institutions to the advanced technology. To find ways to eliminate these constraints, the book explores the nature of these intertwined constraints through comparative case studies of successful resolutions. The book outlines the quantitative characteristics of third-world development in terms of population growth, depletion of natural resources, capital accumulation, and technological change. However, the primary method used in this book is comparative institutional analysis, which compares the types of institutional evolution caused by resource endowments and technological change under different regional, temporal, and socio-cultural contexts. The basis for this comparison is my experience and knowledge of the economic development of East Asia, particularly Japan. It must be acknowledged that, like Adam Smith based his perspective on observations of 18th-century Britain and Friedrich List on observations of 19th-century Germany, my perspective is also biased. Without hesitation, my goal is to build a new "Wealth of Nations" framework, although the current achievements are merely a small step in the journey toward that objective.