understanding agricultural policy in africa the contributions of robert bates abstract robert bates s writings on the determinants of agricultural policy in africa employ rational choice and dialectical approaches to political economy this paper discusses some of the strengths and weaknesses of each and proposes an alternative dynamic approach to understanding both the limitations and the sources of agricultural policy with particular reference to kenya

the state and economic stagnation in tropical africa abstract politics while only one strand in the explanation of africa s massive economic problems is nonetheless a significant factor a central conundrum facing postcolonial political leaders is how to govern and hold together unintegrated peasant societies in the absence of legitimacy personal rule a particular mode of patrimonial governance provides an answer permitting regime survival and the advancement of political insiders but personal rule has an economically destructive tendency that only shrewd political leadership and propitious world economic conditions can check if uncontrolled certain political practices corrode bureaucratic and legal rationality and promote the misallocation of scarce public resources the result can be a downward spiral of interrelated political and economic decline that is increasingly difficult to reverse

the origins and development of the northeast asian political economy industrial sectors product cycles and political consequences theories of the product cycle hegemony and the world system are used to analyze the creation and development of the northeast asian political economy in this century japan south korea and taiwan have each developed in a particular relationship with the others the three taken together form a hierarchical constantly interacting political economic unit during the period of colonial rule japan was unique in building an imperial economic unit marked by a strong role for the state whether in tokyo or taipei by a tight integral unking of all three nations into a communications and transport network running toward the metropole and by a strategy of both using the colonies for agricultural surpluses and then locating industries there after 1945 a diffuse american hegemony replaced japan s unilateral system but elements of the prewar model have survived strong states direct economic development in south korea and taiwan here termed bureaucratic authoritarian industrializing regimes both countries are receptacles for japan s declining industries and both countries develop in tandem if in competition with each other the most recent export led competition has seen taiwan succeed where south korea has temporarily failed leaving seoul in an export led trap burdened with rapidly increasing external debt taiwan furthermore has industrialized relatively free of social disruption whereas korean society resisted its transformation at japanese hands and remains more rebellious today there can be one japan and one taiwan but not two or many of either in the world economy

borrowing from the imf the policy implications of recent empirical research abstract at a time when the future of the international monetary fund is being widely debated a number of relevant and important studies have been published which advance our knowledge of the factors which determine borrowing from the fund there has been little attempt however to put this recent empirical research into context or to extract from it appropriate policy conclusions while dissent remains over some issues there is an emerging consensus on others which provides a firm empirical foundation for policy formulation unfortunately the policy stance adopted by the g7 is in many ways at odds with much of the recent empirical research

public sector layoffs severance pay and inflation in the small open economy abstract because severance pay is worth 2 5 years of wages in many ldcs public sector layoffs increase the fiscal deficit in the short run nevertheless generous severance pay is not as serious a macroeconomic problem as generally thought in the case where the fiscal deficit is financed by printing money inflation is continuously lower under plausible conditions when the government can borrow in world capital markets and layoffs reduce the present value wage bill there exists a sequence of bond sales and subsequent redemptions that guarantees continuously lower inflation this result does not hold however if the reform lacks credibility

the demand for imf credits by sub saharan african countries abstract in this paper the demand behaviour of sub saharan african countries for imf credits will be studied on the basis of pooled cross section and time series analysis it will be concluded that drawings on imf facilities are not a purely economic phenomenon

the imf a bird s eye view of its role and operations the international monetary fund imf is the world s premier international financial institution with 184 member countries and active programmes in a significant number of them at any one time the fund attracts a great deal of attention much of it critical but the discussion is often polemic in style strongly held but frequently opposing views are expressed this survey attempts to examine in an objective way the theory and evidence relating to the fund s operations many aspects of the empirical research are relatively recent and a universal consensus is yet to emerge as a consequence there is scope for disagreement to persist however the research is also gradually clarifying many important issues the format for the survey is to examine the life cycle of imf arrangements what makes a country turn to the fund for assistance should the imf be lending what influences the outcome of negotiations and the design of programmes are imf programmes effective and why do some countries make prolonged use of imf resources for completeness there is also some discussion of the history of the imf the extent to which fund policies have been influenced by advances in economic theory and the fund s systemic role important organisational and governance issues are also covered briefly although primarily adopting an economist s perspective the survey reflects the growing recognition that in order to understand the imf s operations economics has to be combined with politics examining the imf is an exercise in applied political economy copyright 2007 the author journal compilation 2007 blackwell publishing ltd

sources of stagnation in sub saharan africa abstract this paper investigates the sources of economic stagnation in sub saharan africa during the 1970s several policy variables are considered as well as a set of environmental variables which include climate violence export prices and other exogenous factors the paper uses statistical analysis in an attempt to identify the relative importance of the policy variables and the environmental variables taken as groups it also seeks to identify particular policy variables which seem to have been most significant in determining growth outcomes the technique employed for investigation is reduced form econometric estimation in a preliminary analysis the impact of the international trade environment on average economic performance in africa during the period since independence is investigated the results suggest an extremely close relationship between movements in export prices and average performance throughout the 20 year period a second econometric exercise investigates the joint impacts of environmental and policy variables on growth in a cross section of african states since 1970 the spirit of the approach is exploratory and a relatively large number of variables are constructed and tested through multivariate analysis a primary finding is that the environmental variables seem to have had more impact on growth as a group than the policy variables this finding must be qualified however by the continuing lack of some important policy variables agricultural price data have not yet become available in sufficient quantity for cross section analysis nor have several important human resource variables and indices of the use of resources in the public domain among the policy variables which have been used for the analysis those identified with retrenchment during periods of declining commodity prices seem most significant primary among these are the real effective exchange rate and some measures of effectiveness in foreign exchange reallocation during periods when imports must contract severely in the final section of the paper the cross section results are used for a counterfactual analysis of the growth experiences of individual african states measures of growth opportunity cost are constructed which suggest the degree to which errors in management and uncontrollable circumstances have held states below their potential growth paths the results suggest that some success stories may owe much to good luck while some failures may well be due less to bad management than to adverse circumstances

geopolitics and international organizations an empirical study on imf facilities there is growing awareness that the distribution of imf facilities may not be influenced only by the economic needs of borrowers this paper focuses on the fact that the imf may favour geopolitically important countries in the distribution of imf loans differentiating between concessional and non concessional facilities to carry out the empirical analysis we construct a new database that compiles a wide array of proxies for geopolitical importance for 107 imf countries over 1990 2003 focusing on emerging and developing economies we use a factor analysis to capture the common underlying characteristic of countries geopolitical importance as well as a potential analysis since we also want to account for the geographical situation of the loan recipients while controlling for economic and political determinants our results show that geopolitical factors influence notably lending decisions when loans are non concessional whereas results are less robust and in opposite direction for concessional loans this study provides empirical support to the view that geopolitical considerations are an important factor in shaping imf lending decisions potentially affecting the institution s effectiveness and credibility

external demand constraints for agricultural exports an impediment to structural adjustment policies in sub saharan african countries abstract structural adjustment programmes are being promoted throughout the developing countries the recommended policy package including price as well as non price policies is geared towards export growth and a long term sustainable balance of payments there is considerable scepticism however whether developing countries can indeed benefit from an export oriented growth strategy first rigidities in domestic output supply responses could preclude significant export growth second external demand side constraints could impede export revenue growth if a jointly promoted export led strategy resulted in world market price deterioration analysis reveals that in the case of sub saharan africa neither of the above factors should cause a failure of structural adjustment policies however the outcome of adjustment policies could be improved if commodity and country specific factors were taken into consideration

divergent cultures when public organizations perform well in developing countries abstract throughout the developing world there are organizations that perform relatively well despite dauntingly unfavorable contexts and despite overall poor public sector performance this article explores evidence from 29 organizations in six countries to suggest that the concept of organizational culture provides a useful hypothesis to explain why some of them performed relatively well while others did not organizational mystique management style and performance expectations contributed to positive organizational cultures in better performing organizations while some autonomy in personnel management provided a facilitating context for these characteristics to be developed

the leadership factor in african policy reform and growth in 1997 the world bank s two vice presidents for sub saharan africa attributed a significant improvement in africa s growth prospects to a new generation of leaders replacing their once largely statist and corrupt predecessors of 48 african leaders holding office on 1 january 1999 22 were in power a decade earlier and eight ten years before that examination of ten countries with focus on kenya and zambia raises the question why after these incumbents had created such an economic catastrophe were socio political structures unable to replace them with better leaders there are no clear answers the literature on the political economy of economic reform has tended to focus on interest group analysis with only a few studies according a major role to the emergence of individuals whose vision and initiative launch their countries onto paths of rapid growth promoting reform in africa encounters many difficulties yet there is increasing evidence that action by national leaders to raise agricultural production and promote the export of labor intensive manufactures would greatly enhance the prospects for accelerated growth the paper urges other social scientists to help us learn more about how african social structures can create power bases for individuals with the vision to promote and sustain economic reform

the imf and the mobilisation of foreign aid abstract particularly in the context of the millennium development goals there has been much discussion of the association between the international monetary fund and bilateral aid flows what role should the fund be playing in helping to achieve the mdgs some observers have suggested that the fund should seek to reduce its role in poor countries and should be minimising its own lending they see aid donors taking on a larger role and present the imf and aid donors as substitutes others envisage a much bigger lending role for the fund this may hint at complementarities although this discussion raises important policy issues there are very few studies that examine the relationship empirically this paper attempts to help fill this gap it explores the extent to which the imf has had a catalytic effect on official development assistance and the potential channels through which catalysis might work it finds strong evidence of a positive association and suggests that this may have more to do with condit

an analysis of drawings on the international monetary fund by developing countries the nature of relations between the imf and developing countries has come under close scrutiny in recent years this has partly been the result of the deteriorating economic situation in which a large number of non oil developing countries have found themselves a situation characterised by falling rates of economic growth increasing balance of payments deficits and rising debt service ratios and partly it has resulted from the particular but public experiences of a number of developing countries such as jamaica peru and tanzania in their dealings with the fund

implementing economic policy reforms policies and opportunities for donors abstract african countries trying to cope with crippling economic problems by liberalizing their economies are facing major problems in implementing the reforms international organizations are responding by offering technical assistance typically however the assistance is based on limited and technocratic models that overlook the fact that many of the reforms are unimplementable reforms are complex and uncertain they impose significant political costs their values are generally incompatible with the prevailing political philosophy they involve changing roles they alter power relations within the government and they are identified with outsiders the dominant approaches to implementation privatization training and enhanced control by central ministries underestimate the extent to which the reforms undermine traditional practices the study recommends a fourth approach to address these challenges it relies on designing reforms in collaboration with those who will be in charge of implementing them

social capital as a product of class mobilization and state intervention industrial workers in kerala india abstract this paper argues that state intervention and class mobilization in the state of kerala india have produced two forms of social capital kerala s high level of social development and successful redistributive reforms are a direct result of mutually reinforcing interactions between a programmatic labor movement and a democratic state this synergy between state and labor has also created the institutional forms and political processes required for negotiating the class compromises through which redistribution and growth can be reconciled these dynamics are explored through a close examination of both the organized factory sector and the unorganized informal sector

peasant supply response in rationed economies abstract when peasants do not have reliable access to goods on the black market government price controls may result in rationing of peasants demand for consumer goods we show that supply response is then perverse and that the economy may collapse as exports fall and rural shortages intensify such a crisis may initially be disguised as peasants sell export goods to build up money stocks we consider the policy options for governments facing such problems

the effect of imf programs on economic growth abstract using a bivariate dynamic version of the heckman selection model we estimate the effect of participation in international monetary fund imf programs on economic growth we find evidence that governments enter into agreements with the imf under the pressures of a foreign reserves crisis but they also bring in the fund to shield themselves from the political costs of adjustment policies program participation lowers growth rates for as long as countries remain under a program once countries leave the program they grow faster than if they had remained but not faster than they would have without participation

exchange rate regimes in developing and emerging economies and the incidence of imf programs summary the global economic crisis will compel many countries to revise key economic policies including their exchange rate regime the international monetary fund will have significant influence on their choices and has exhibited a bias against intermediate regimes we examine the link between exchange rate regimes and imf program use and find no evidence that countries with intermediate exchange rate regimes require more frequent imf assistance rather they appear somewhat less dependent especially when compared to fixed exchange rates our results suggest that intermediate regimes should remain a viable and possibly desirable exchange rate choice for some countries

capitals and capabilities a framework for analyzing peasant viability rural livelihoods and poverty abstract on the basis of themes emerging in current debates on rural development in latin america this paper develops an analytical framework for analyzing rural livelihoods in terms of their sustainability and their implications for rural poverty the framework argues that our analyses of rural livelihoods need to understand them in terms of a people s access to five types of capital asset b the ways in which they combine and transform those assets in the building of livelihoods that as far as possible meet their material and their experiential needs c the ways in which people are able to expand their asset bases through engaging with other actors through relationships governed by the logics of the state market and civil society and d the ways in which they are able to deploy and enhance their capabilities both to make living more meaningful and to change the dominant rules and relationships governing the ways in which resources are controlled distributed and transformed in society particular attention is paid to the importance of social capital as an asset through which people are able to widen their access to resources and other actors

the effects of imf and world bank lending on long run economic growth an empirical analysis summary the international monetary fund and the world bank frequently and often repeatedly extend loans to developing nations these loans have been blamed for generating adverse economic outcomes the growth impact of fund and bank loan programs is assessed using an empirical growth model that controls for other determinants of growth a unique feature of this study is the use of the value of loans rather than the number of programs the estimates indicate that bank lending stimulates growth in some cases primarily by increasing public investment fund lending is either neutral or detrimental to growth the channel for this effect is a negative impact of fund lending on public as well as private investment

many happy returns recidivism and the imf abstract imf programs are designed to provide a temporary source of finance for countries with balance of payments disequilibria consequently borrowing from the imf should occur infrequently and be widely distributed among member countries however some countries are recurrent users of fund resources this paper investigates which variables account for multiple borrowings from the imf we use models of count data to examine the impact of the need for financing domestic policies external shocks and structural and institutional factors on borrowings between 1980 and 1996 we find that recidivist borrowers have lower reserve holdings larger current account deficits and capital outflows lower but less volatile terms of trade larger debt service and external debt ratios lower investment rates and per capita income and weak governance

when failure becomes success class and the debate over stabilization and adjustment abstract this article criticizes the current debate over stabilization and adjustment and develops an alternative class analytic approach first the respective theories and policy recommendations of neoclassical and structuralist economist are analyzed then the article considers the recent experiences of argentina brazil and peru where orthodox and heterodox policies have been attempted and subsequently declared failures finally it is shown that those failures with respect to employment inflation and the balance of payments become successes to the extent that they involve increasing exploitation and otherwise strengthening the class aspects of capitalism

economic reform and political change in myanmar burma abstract this paper examines recent policy changes in myanmar formerly burma analyzing the reasons for the decision to move from a state led socialist planning system to a more market oriented system and attempting to evaluate both the direction and sustainability of these economic reforms on the basis of this survey of recent economic development the paper seeks to evaluate the argument that economic reform is a hostage to political reform the discussion of the relationship between economic change and political reform has suffered from drastic oversimplification and rests on misleading assumptions about causal relationships between economic and political factors the paper argues that a less superficial account must embrace an understanding of the historical roots of the burmese political economy the history and nature of the burmese state and the characteristics of burmese military and political elites we conclude that it is more illuminating to focus on the historical interaction of economic and political factors so as to construct a convincing political economy of myanmar than to argue for the current significance of political conditionality

bureaucracy and growth we revisit the hypothesis that a weberian bureaucracy enhances economic growth theoretically we develop arguments for why such a bureaucracy may enhance growth and discuss plausible counterargume

institutional framework and public enterprise performance abstract the purpose of this paper is to derive on the basis of available literature on successful enterprises some conjectures tentative generalizations with regard to the strategic factors and in particular the characteristics of the decision structure and processes that account for good public enterprise performance in the mining and manufacturing sector section 2 deals with the decision framework and section 3 with the motivational and inducement mechanisms the impact of distributional pressures on decision making is discussed in section 4 and the role of ideology in section 5 some concluding observations are made in section 6

international negotiations in the shadow of national elections this study examines the role elections play in negotiations between states and the international monetary fund imf although loans made by the imf often require countries to introduce painful austerity measures that provoke a backlash from angry citizens some governments are able to negotiate more favorable terms than others original data on the substantive content of imf loans show that governments leverage imminent elections to obtain more lenient loan terms conditions that require labor market reforms in exchange for imf financing are relatively less stringent in loans negotiated within six months before a pending democratic election all else equal the further away elections are from loan negotiations the more stringent the labor conditions included in countries loan programs elections give governments leverage in their international negotiations and this leverage is effective even when states negotiate with unelected bureaucrats during times of economic crisis

markets and states against minimalism abstract this paper argues against the currently fashionable case for state minimalism or laissez faire it not only argues for a strong state but also for an activist one though operating on a different basis from the many recently failed interventionist states the argument is developed via a critique of a series of overstated or one sided propositions that bolster the state minimalist position these include the notion of price distortions of inherently inefficient public enterprise of an unambiguous dividing line between the public and the private sectors and of statism as inherently rent seeking the paper seeks to rescue alternative perspectives from outside neoclassical political economy approach such as the importance of civil society and the need for a nonmaximizing theory of the state successful liberalization programs may require more intervention of a different kind at least for a transitional period a broad view of democracy is required allowing the possibility of state action guided by motives of public interest

infrastructure pricing policies and the public revenue in african countries abstract the paper shows that the public revenue constraint on economically and socially desirable programs in africa could be greatly relaxed through the adoption of cost reflecting pricing policies for physical infrastructure services roads and drainage water and sewerage electricity and telecommunications currently the prices of infrastructure services are frequently below both economic costs and what is needed to finance investment operating and maintenance expenditures the services generate poor financial returns and absorb much public finance when in practice they are capable of earning appreciable surpluses the paper discusses the benefits of reforming infrastructure pricing policies the institutional and other difficulties of bringing reforms into effect and finally makes some proposals although much of the analysis relates to africa several of its findings apply more generally

on us politics and imf lending abstract the political factors shaping imf lending to developing countries have attracted attention in recent empirical work this goes in particular for the role and influence of the us however scant formal modelling makes interpretation of empirical results difficult in this paper we propose a model in which the us acts as principal within the imf and seeks to maximize its impact on the policy stance of debtor countries we derive an optimal loan allocation mechanism which leads to the testable hypothesis that the probability of an imf loan is increasing in the amount of political concessions countries make a political concession is defined as the distance between a country s bliss point and its actual policy stance measured relative to the us we introduce a bliss point proxy and demonstrate that our hypothesis is strongly supported in the data moreover we show that not accounting for bliss points may lead to endogeneity bias in empirical work

institutional impediments to workforce retrenchment and restructing in ghana s state enterprises abstract the central argument developed in this paper is that attempts to introduce a more market oriented discipline to the structure and management of the workforce in state enterprises can be severely compromised when inadequate attention is given to the institutional setting in which many of the problems addressed by current reform efforts are rooted the argument is illustrated by references to efforts in ghana to reduce overall employment in the state enterprise sector and to restructure workforces at the enterprise level

imf lending programs participation and impact abstract participation in imf programs has been an option that more and more developing countries have exercised in recent years in this paper a detailed analysis of such participation over the period 1976 1986 provides a number of insights into the motivations for and the macroeconomic effects of such participation participation is driven by a combination of past performance present external influences and sluggish adjustment of developing countries the ability to predict which countries will participate in the imf program is quite good with nearly 90 percent of variation in such choices accounted for by the explanatory variables employed increased participation has as contemporaneous effects a reduction in economic growth and domestic investment and an improvement in the current account lagged effects of increased participation on economic growth and domestic investment are positive and in most estimates quantitatively greater than the contemporaneous effects there is also evidence of significantly lower public investment an increased budget surplus and real depreciation of the exchange rate with increased participation results for domestic credit creation and government current expenditure although they have a sign consistent with more austere policy cannot be shown to be significantly different from those not participating

twenty five years of economic development revisited abstract the basic question asked in this essay is do morawetz s findings in twenty five years of economic development hold when extended to a period 1975 1989 of great turmoil in the international economy the record is mixed some of the trends that were observed during 1950 1975 did not carry over to 1975 1989 growth during 1950 1975 now looks exceptional compared to what followed and the balance of payments and debt constraints to growth have come sharply to the fore others especially the divergence in growth among countries and regions and the relationship between growth poverty and inequality foreshadowed longer run trends some of morawetz s conclusions also do not hold when seen in the light of the experience of 1975 1989 for example his pronouncement regarding a socialist and inward alternative to equitable growth and development now appears premature but the most surprising finding is the confirmation of his little noted statement regarding the contribution of political stability and stability of the economic rules of the game and by extension of the nation building process to development performance

local capacity village governance and the political economy of rural development in indonesia summary this paper develops a framework for conceptualizing local capacity to address village level livelihood and governance problems the framework is based on an analysis of asset distribution combined with an explicit analysis of the links between processes of state formation state business linkages and local forms of social capital the framework is used to discuss findings from recent research on village capacity in rural indonesia the discussion suggests that it is possible to link a political economic approach to rural development with recent conceptualizations of social capital such an analysis can illuminate the forms taken by and the effectiveness of village level collective action in ways that either purely political economy or social capital approaches do not

structural adjustment a survey of the issues and options abstract the article raises and attempts to answer questions such as adjustment for what purpose to what shocks of what factors or forces by whom who loses and who benefits from adjustment and adjustment how it also discusses the question of adjustment when the distinction between external and internal shocks is rejected as neither helpful for the allocation of blame nor for the justification of raising finance an analysis of the impact on the poor is sketched out after a brief discussion of the role of the market and government intervention in adjustment policy and the fallacy of aggregating country policies there follows a discussion of the double paradox of conditionality why should a donor impose conditions that are in the best interest of the recipient and why instead of paying for getting good advice is the recipient rewarded with extra money ten possible reasons are given the paper ends with proposals as to how to overcome the conflict between national sovereignty and assuring that donor money is well spent

applying chapter 9 insolvency to international debts an economically efficient solution with a human face abstract internationalizing us insolvency procedures for municipalities chapter 9 would provide a viable and efficient solution to the debt crisis chapter 9 deals with debtors having governmental powers protects those affected by public debts and gives them a right to be heard with minor changes it can be applied internationally this paper elaborates this proposal initially made in 1987 and presents the structure of chapter 9 de facto international precedents and some basic elements of an international chapter 9 it shows that this solution would combine economic efficiency and the protection of human dignity allowing adjustment with a human face

economic reform in developing countries some conceptual issues abstract this paper is an effort to show that the outcome of stabilization and structural adjustment policies largely based on the neoclassical economic rationale was justifiable neither in terms of the analytical nor the historical literature the very ideological nature and the inherent contradictions of policies inhibited successful implementation and accentuated poverty and inequity in developing countries by drawing on the views of various contemporary schools of economic thought the paper also questions the validity of the international financial institutions claims of consensus on development policy the paper emphasizes that in social science research and more so in policy prescriptions the search for consensus may in fact be futile

government action social capital and development reviewing the evidence on synergy abstract instead of assuming a zero sum relationship between government involvement and private cooperative efforts the five preceding articles argue for the possibility of state society synergy that active government and mobilized communities can enhance each others developmental efforts this article draws on these articles to explore the forms and sources of state society synergy i argue that synergy usually combines complementarity with embeddedness and is most easily fostered in societies characterized by egalitarian social structures ard robust coherent state bureaucracies i also argue however that synergy is constructable even in the more adverse circumstances typical of third world countries

who makes economic policy in africa and how abstract to understand the considerable detorioration in the economic policies of many african countries during the 1970s it is essential to go beyond the economist s analytical models the pressing drive of authoritarian rulers to survive adds an important dimension to economic policy choices although constrained to varying degrees by ethnic regional and class loyalties among populations they govern african rulers enjoy a measure of autonomy in making policy they did not react speedily to the growing economic crisis during the early 1980s however most reforms were undertaken under pressure and many policy efforts failed some countries managed to sustain reforms but the important question is how to go beyond these idiosyncratic cases

gradualism in aid and reforms abstract dynamic strategic interaction between an international donor and a recipient government is analyzed to review the efficacy of aid conditionality for governance reforms in ldcs it is shown that irrespective of whether the donor can fully commit to the aid program or not for maximal improvement in governance the aid should be disbursed in increments with each subsequent tranche being conditional on prior reforms demonstrating aid gradualism while the attraction of future aid incentivizes authorities to push through reforms these reforms in turn also make aid diversion less feasible further under full commitment the optimal aid package may involve offering scope for interim aid diversion to the elite for long term improvement in governance with such aid diversion being more likely to happen when the total aid budget is large with only partial commitment so that time consistency requires the donor to reconfigure aid in each round it is shown that a interim aid diversion is no longer viable and b both aid and reforms exhibit strong gradualism or what is known as the starting small and grow later principle in commitment models

the imf forever an analysis of the prolonged use of fund resources considerable concern has been expressed about the prolonged use made of international monetary fund imf resources by a number of member countries some commentators have seen this as being fundamentally at odds with the role of the imf as a source of temporary balance of payments support and as one aspect of mission creep by the fund the perceived importance of the issue is reflected by the fact that the first report of the fund s independent evaluation office focused on it this article provides a detailed analysis of the prolonged use of fund resources it assesses the extent to which it is a problem and draws on available empirical evidence both qualitative and quantitative to isolate the causes of prolonged use it concludes by examining the policy questions to which prolonged use gives rise

institution building multilateral development banks and state owned enterprises abstract despite the increasing popularity of privatization in latin america many large and important firms will remain in the public sector and for those firms improved economic performance is essential if a constant drain on developing country treasuries is to be avoided this paper analyzes the improvements in enterprise performance that may occur as a result of cooperation between state owned enterprise soes and multilateral development banks and argues that the combination of softer terms and harder conditions may help soe management increase the operational efficiency of their firms the experience of the paraguayan state firm ande and the inter american development bank is examined and found to provide evidence in support of this hypothesis

editorial human capital and human capability i would like to comment on the connection as well as contrast between two distinct but related areas of investigation in understanding the processes of economic and social development the accumulation of human capital and the expansion of human capability the former concentrates on the agency of human beings through skill and knowledge as well as effort in augmenting production possibilities the latter focuses on the ability of human beings to lead lives they have reason to value and to enhance the substantive choices they have the two perspectives cannot but be related since both are concerned with the role of human beings and in particular with the actual abilities that they achieve and acquire given her personal characteristics social background economic circumstances etc a person has the ability to do or be certain things that she has reason to value the reason for valuation can be direct the functioning involved may directly enrich her life such as being well nourished or being healthy or indirect the functioning involved may contribute to further production or command a price in the market the human capital perspective can in principle be defined very broadly to cover both types of valuation but it is typically defined by convention primarily in terms of indirect value human qualities that can be employed as capital in production in the way physical capital is in this sense the narrower view of human capital approach fits into the more inclusive perspective of human capability which can cover both direct and indirect consequences of human abilities consider an example if education makes a person more efficient in commodity production then this is clearly an enhancement of human capital this can add to the value of production in the economy and also to the income of the person who has been educated but even with the same level of income a person may benefit from education in reading communicating arguing in being able to choose in a more informed way in being taken more seriously by others and so on the benefits of education thus exceeds its role as human capital in commodity production the broader human capability perspective would record and value these additional roles the two perspectives are thus closely related but distinct the significant transformation that has occurred in recent years in giving greater recognition to the role of human capital is helpful for understanding the relevance of the capability perspective if a person can become more productive in making commodities through better education better health and so on it is not unnatural to expect that she can also directly achieve more and have the freedom to achieve more in leading her life both perspectives put humanity at the center of attention altogether this involves to a great extent a return to an integrated approach to economic and social development championed particularly by adam smith both in the wealth of nations and in the theory of moral sentiments in analysing the determination of production possibilities smith emphasized the role education as well as division of labor learning by doing and skill formation the development of human capability in leading a worthwhile life as well as in being more productive is quite central to smith s analysis of the wealth of nations indeed adam smith s belief in the power of education and learning was peculiarly strong regarding the debate that continues today on the respective roles of nature and nurture smith was an uncompromising nurturist and this fitted in with his massive confidence in the improvability of human capabilities

the economic characteristics of imf program countries abstract a logit analysis is utilized to identify the factors that characterized developing nations that entered imf stabilization programs in the early 1980s program countries recorded higher rates of domestic credit growth larger shares of government expenditure more severe current account deficits smaller reserve holdings and lower per capita incomes

africa s economic performance limitations of the current consensus historical and micro survey evidence as well as the standard data from international organizations support less pessimistic conclusions on africa s development performance than those reached by many social scientists the changes that have benefited women over the last four decades are highlighted a discussion of growth in agricultural production follows however the complexity and the brutality of processes of social and economic change in sub saharan african economies are also stressed the theoretical implications of these complexities have not been adequately analyzed by world bank economists the bank s recent efforts to reassess its policies are therefore unlikely to achieve the results anticipated

bureaucrats in business chinese style the lessons of market reform and state entrepreneurialism in the people s republic of china in the 1990s parts of the state bureaucracy in china have been setting up new profit seeking risk taking businesses some of these businesses are entrepreneurial rather than rent seeking and are an unplanned and unanticipated development in china s market oriented economic reforms what are the lessons of this phenomenon for the developing world state entrepreneurialism may create problems such as reduced government control over departmental finance loss of state assets and uneven provision of services it is nevertheless an innovative solution to the politically difficult problem of bureaucratic restructuring and confounds the development orthodoxy fostered by neoliberalism that states will resist market reform it also demonstrates that to understand fully the politics of market reform we must research the activities of subcentral state bureaucrats as well as central leaders and policymakers

solving the mystery of the africa dummy abstract most empirical studies have reported a negative effect on growth of being an african country even when accounting for ethnic heterogeneity modeling policy choices has reduced this effect in recent studies but these have begged the question of why africa appears adverse to developmental policies this paper uses a cross sectional data set to show that the governments of arbitrary postcolonial states as are most african states face substantial limitations to their power and are constrained in their responses deriving greater relative power payoffs from neo patrimonial than from developmental policies differing levels of state legitimacy account therefore largely for the policy choices which characterize most of africa

the effect of imf programs on labor abstract previous studies find that imf programs have negative effects on income distribution the international monetary fund and latin america economic stabilization and class conflict westview press boulder 1987a world dev 15 1987b 365 world dev 28 2000 1031 no study however has used parametric methods to control for nonrandom selection using a dynamic version of the heckman selection model i study the effect of imf programs on the labor share of income from manufacturing my conclusions are supported by 2 095 observations of 110 countries during 1961 93