the rise and fall of the washington consensus as a paradigm for developing countries abstract the introduction of the washington consensus involved not simply a swing from state led to market oriented policies but also a shift in the ways in which development problems were framed and in the types of explanation through which policies were justified key changes were the partial globalization of development policy analysis and a shift from historicism to ahistorical performance assessment the main challenge to this approach is a latent southern consensus which is apparent in the convergence between east asian developmentalism and latin american neostructuralism the demise of the washington consensus is inevitable because its methodology and ideology are in contradiction

are poverty reduction strategy papers associated with reductions in poverty and improvements in wellbeing should poverty reduction strategy papers prsps be the tool for implementing the new sustainable development goals as they were for the millennium development goals surprisingly despite the controversies around them there has never been a quantitative evaluation of prsps this paper estimates the impact of having a prsp on various targets of the millennium development goals results suggest that countries under prsp treatment achieve much greater reductions than control countries in head count poverty and infant mortality while also achieving greater improvements in primary school enrolments and gender parity

the politics of liberalizing zambia s maize markets abstract this paper discusses the process of agricultural liberalization in zambia the central argument is that maize markets have been more quickly and fully liberalized than maize input markets because the perceived political risks of liberalizing input markets are greater than those of liberalizing maize markets and because economic interest groups benefited from maize liberalization while similar interests benefited from continued government interventions in input markets these finding imply that in order to understand the prospects for economic liberalization in new democracies we must disaggregate both civil society and markets

market related reforms and increased energy efficiency in transition countries empirical evidence energy efficiency improvement is a desirable response to growing climate change and security of energy supply concerns this article studies the impacts of a varied set of macro level market oriented reforms as well as structural change on economy wide measure of energy efficiency across a group of the transition countries these countries experienced a rapid marketization process which since the early 1990s transformed their economies from central planning towards market driven models we use a bias corrected fixed effect analysis technique to estimate this effect for the period 1990 to 2010 the results suggest that reforms aimed at market liberalization financial sector and most infrastructure industries drove energy efficiency improvements we find significant differences in improvements in energy efficiency between transitional central european and baltic states south east europe ones and the commonwealth of independent states the reasons for these differences are also discussed

the probability of dependence on public assistance despite almost incessant discussion of welfare reform see levy 1978 and department of health and social security 1978 traditional systems of income support and their associated problems remain largely intact the most intractable difficulty has been the conflict between the desire to reduce costs by concentrating benefits on the poorest families and the desire to preserve work incentives by not withdrawing benefits too rapidly if a recipient family starts earning hanoch and honig 1978 show that the incentive effect of income support schemes is theoretically ambiguous levy 1979 investigates the labour supply issue empirically this paper looks at the whole issue of welfare dependency using data on american families receiving benefits under the largest scheme of public assistance aid to families with dependent children afdc we concentrate on an important group of poor families those without fathers and examine in particular the following issues a the effectiveness of afdc in selecting the very poorest families for the largest benefits b the extent to which the number of recipients is influenced by the generosity of benefits and the implicit tax on earnings c the extent to which recipients take advantage of the opportunity to supplement benefits with earnings d whether the implicit tax on earnings discourages families from working e whether the disproportionate share of blacks among recipients reflects a difference in attitudes about work and welfare between blacks and whites or whether it is explained by the adverse circumstances of blacks four different levels of dependence are considered none partial i e benefits less than earnings substantial i e benefits more than earnings and total the probability of each level of dependence is taken as a function of family characteristics including earning potential and of the characteristics of the afdc system section i describes a theory of family behaviour based on the assumption that observed differences in the behaviour of apparently identical families reflect an underlying distribution of unobserved differences section ii discusses the statistical method used to estimate the probabilities a straightforward generalization of logit analysis section iii presents and interprets the statistical results and section iv summarizes our answers to the five issues posed above two comments on the choice and use of the data should be made before proceeding the choice of data for 1967 was influenced not only by the availability of two surveys the survey of economic opportunity and a survey of afdc recipients but also by the fact that 1967 was the last year in which afdc was a relatively pure scheme subsequent legislation imposed constraints on the extent to which states could withdraw benefits as recipients incomes rose more recently the explosion in the size of the food stamp programme still very small in

on measuring economic diversification reply professors wasylenko and erickson s comment on our article regarding the measurement of economic diversification hackbart and anderson 1975 focuses on two issues 1 that the entropy measure yields diversity rankings for regional economies that are almost identical to those derived with the ogive index and 2 that the entropy measure is an inadequate measure for examining industrial diversity either among regions or for a particular region over a period of time concerning the first issue wasylenko and erickson indicate that the

the impact of soil conservation and output diversification on farm income in central american hillside farming this article analyzes the determinants of farm income among hillside farmers participating in natural resource management projects in el salvador and honduras the farm income function was evaluated using a system of equations in which income is determined simultaneously by the farmer s decision to adopt soil conservation technologies and by the level of diversification number of agricultural activities on the farm the database used comes from surveys administered to 678 beneficiaries of these projects during 2002 the econometric results suggest that all the variables related directly to land use i e output diversification soil conservation practices and structures and the adoption of forestry systems have a positive and statistically significant association with farm income also farmers who own land enjoy higher farm incomes than those who do not the results indicate that when investing in natural resource management projects governments and multilateral development agencies should pay close attention to output diversification land tenure and human capital formation as effective instruments in increasing farm income

ideas versus resources explaining the flat tax and pension privatization revolutions in eastern europe and the former soviet union this article examines the rapid spread of pension privatization and the flat tax in former communist countries to understand why new policy ideas take hold and to elucidate the role played by mater

why many eligible individuals choose not to go on welfare this article investigates why many eligible for welfare do not participate we show that on the job wage rising potential is the key factor motivating nonparticipation although individuals with very low earnings and little wage rising potential are typically welfare recipients those with good wage rising potential may choose to work participate in old age or never participate nonparticipation remains the best choice for eligible individuals with large wage rising potential even if universal old age social security is available we will also apply this model to a comprehensive welfare system in hong kong

the impact of state economic differentials on household welfare and labor force behavior abstract this paper calculates state specific income expectations for low income households using a simultaneous model of household labor force and welfare participation decisions a variety of simulations indicate the interlocking effects of existing state differences in welfare wages and taxes on work welfare choices and income significant differences among similar households in different states occur equalization of welfare benefits eliminates some but not all of these differences but generates potentially serious policy problems for the states

on environmental impacts of market based reforms evidence from the european and central asian transition economies global warming and other adverse climate change impacts induced by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are a major public policy concern around the world including transitional economies this paper therefore examines the impacts of market based economic reforms on per capita co2 emissions in the european and central asian transition economies where environmental degradation was pervasive prior to these reforms a dynamic panel data model is employed for this purpose for 28 countries covering 22 years from 1990 to 2012 our overall results suggest that economic openness may not necessarily result in sustainable development although reforms in competition policy and corporate governance were the significant drivers of emissions reductions in the region hence advances in competition policy and governance reforms are desirable given the available scope to extend these reforms the structural shift to and emergence of light industries also contributed to declining co2 emissions in the transition process the direct impact of the kyoto protocol in reducing emissions is debatable which also raises doubts on the effectiveness of the paris agreements

connective power solar electrification and social change in kenya summary market based rural electrification with solar energy is increasingly common in developing countries this article revolves around three main claims about solar electrification in kenya s unsubsidized market 1 the benefits of solar electrification are captured primarily by the rural middle class 2 solar electricity plays a modest role in supporting economically productive and education related activities but connective applications such as television radio and cellular telephone charging often receive a higher priority 3 solar electrification is more closely tied to increased television use the expansion of markets more rural urban communication and other processes that increase rural urban connectivity than to poverty alleviation sustainable development or the appropriate technology movement

the structural reshaping of globalization implications for strategic sectors profiting from innovation and the multinational enterprise the rapid reshaping of the global economic order requires fundamental shifts in international business scholarship and management practice new forms of protectionist policies new types of internationalization motives and new tools of techno nationalism may lead to what we call bifurcated governance at the macro level and value chain decoupling at the micro level as a result innovation networks will require novel reconfigurations we examine the emerging constraints on multinational enterprises imposed by a bifurcated world order we also discuss how the dynamic capabilities framework can guide scholars and managers alike to achieve new forms of evolutionary fitness

the globalization of liberalization policy diffusion in the international political economy one of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal economic ideas and policies throughout the world these policies have affected the lives of millions of people yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture influences on these policy choices evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices is highly clustered both temporally and spatially we hypothesize that this clustering might be due to processes of policy diffusion we think of diffusion as resulting from one of two broad sets of forces one in which mounting adoptions of a policy alter the benefits of adopting for others and another in which adoptions provide policy relevant information about the benefits of adopting we develop arguments within these broad classes of mechanisms construct appropriate measures of the relevant concepts and test their effects on liberalization and restriction of the current account the capital account and the exchange rate regime our findings suggest that domestic models of foreign economic policy making are insufficient the evidence shows that policy transitions are influenced by international economic competition as well as the policies of a country s sociocultural peers we interpret the latter influence as a form of channeled learning reflecting governments search for appropriate models for economic policy

the future of development economics a methodological agenda this paper discusses methodological differences between universalism and particularism in development economics by focusing on the east asian miracle debate it proposes to build development economics as part of hetero economics not mono economics following max weber s methodology of social science and suggests developing intermediate theories by abstracting directly from given comparative settings it also discusses the limitations that are inherent in this method as well as ways to employ the method in actual analyses this paper argues that the future task of development economics lies in recombining existing theories and developing new complementing theories that will systematically delineate the diversity of developing countries

redefining the role of the state an interview with introduction by brian snowdon professor joseph stiglitz is without question one of the world s leading economists in his extensive research he has made seminal contributions to the analysis of the economic consequences of incomplete information and uncertainty this work has greatly enhanced economists understanding of the welfare properties of markets and the sources of market failure his research has also contributed to the development of better microeconomic foundations for keynesian macroeconomic models most recently professor stiglitz has been heavily involved in controversial public policy debates relating to the east asian crisis problems of transition from communism to capitalism the limitations of the washington consensus and globalisation and development a common theme in all of these debates relates to the role of government and legitimate borders of the state in both developed and developing economies in this article interview professor stiglitz gives his views on these and several other important global issues

cash equivalence welfare stigma and food stamps the food stamp program fsp is one of the largest domestic redistributive transfer programs with approximately 22 million participants at a cost of 12 billion in 1983 the stated objective of the fsp is to raise the levels of nutrition among low income households by providing such households with an opportunity to obtain a low cost nutritionally adequate diet 29 5 for program evaluation and cost forecasting accurate estimates of the determinants of eligible households program participation and food expenditure decisions are of particular concern in light of the elimination of the purchase requirement epr and other recent structural changes in the program the problem of obtaining these estimates has three dimensions first observations on the behavior of eligible households under the post epr institutional setting are required second the roles of welfare stigma and the cash equivalence of the in kind food stamps must be clarified finally because program participation is a household choice that affects food expenditures the interdependence of eligible households fsp participation and food expenditure decisions must be accommodated emphasizing an important component of this interdependence the connection between cash equivalence of stamps in the participation decision and in expenditures for food this paper tackles all three dimensions the purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which food stamps are cash equivalent and to determine which program and household characteristics including the degree of cash equivalence and stigma affect post epr food stamp program participation

a comparison of the effect of welfare programme features on welfare participation one and two parent families the effect of welfare programme characteristics on the decision to enter the welfare system is modelled as a binary discrete choice latent variable model dependent upon an underlying index function the two chief classes of welfare beneficiaries in the us welfare system are analysed two parent families and single female headed families the data set is a large recent non experimental multiyear cross sectional pooled data set derived from the us census bureaus current population survey behavioural impacts from a range of economic variables are consistent in sign with predictions made by economic theory newly estimated comprehensive descriptive statistics of the entire welfare system for both single female household heads and married couples with children are employed to characterize the welfare system statistically significant estimates of substantial magnitude are obtained for the impacts on welfare participation for the welfare guarantee level the effective tax rate on earned income and the effec

the household bankruptcy decision personal bankruptcy filings have risen from 0 3 percent of households per year in 1984 to around 1 35 percent in 1998 and 1999 transforming bankruptcy from a rare occurrence to a routine event lenders lost about 39 billion in 1998 due to personal bankruptcy filings but economists have little understanding of why households file for bankruptcy or why filings have increased so rapidly until very recently studying the household bankruptcy decision was very difficult because no household level data set existed that included information on bankruptcy filings in this paper we use new data from the panel study of income dynamics which includes information on bankruptcy filings to estimate a model of households bankruptcy decisions we find support for the strategic model of bankruptcy which predicts that households are more likely to file when their financial benefit from filing is higher our model predicts that an increase of 1 000 in households financial benefit from bankruptcy would result in a 7 percent increase in the number of bankruptcy filings our model also predicts that if the 1997 national bankruptcy review commission s proposed changes in bankruptcy exemption levels were implemented there would be a 16 percent increase in the number of bankruptcy filings each year but if the 100 000 cap on homestead exemptions recently passed by the u s senate were adopted our model predicts that there would be only a negligible effect on the number of filings we find little support for the nonstrategic model of bankruptcy which predicts that households file when adverse events occur which reduce their ability to repay finally controlling for state and time fixed effects our model shows that households are more likely to file for bankruptcy if they live in districts with higher aggregate filing rates

explaining political and economic change in post communist eastern europe old legacies new institutions hegemonic norms and international pressures this article presents a framework for the analysis of regime change in post communist eastern europe it examines two competing approaches the legacies of the past and the imperatives of liberalization as alternative causal factors shaping the trajectories of regime change the article argues that the debate between these two approaches has important implications for comparative research methodology and design to the extent that past legacies dominate the path of post communist regime change comparisons with other regions emerging from an authoritarian past will yield less insight the authors claim however that the immediate context of norms institutions and international pressures shapes the particular way that legacies influence outcomes thus they conclude that cross regional research is likely to be fruitful and should be pursued

on measuring economic diversification comment since many individuals are immobile between city labor markets in the short run the industrial structure of cities plays an important role in determining the national rate of unemployment this paper argues that a city s frictional unemployment rate

democracy and the washington consensus abstract this paper argues that there is a substantial body of economic advice roughly summarized in the washington consensus that deserves to be endorsed across the political spectrum such endorsement would still leave a series of major economic issues most notably the tradeoff between efficiency and equity to be determined by the outcome of the political process it is argued that the left interpreted as those who give relatively more weight to equity will advance its cause by embracing the mainstream economics summarized by the consensus

participation in the afdc program and the stigma of welfare receipt estimation of a choice theoretic model one of the important issues in policy discussions of the present welfare system and of welfare reform alternatives concerns the degree to which low income families eligible for welfare will in fact participate in the major program in the current system aid to families with dependent children afdc participation rates have risen over time particularly in the late 1960 s but have never been 100 percent explaining such changes in participation rates is an important subject of investigation because a participation rates lead directly to caseload sizes and thus to the possibility of a welfare explosion and b the estimates of the effect of welfare program tax rates and guarantees 10 are strictly applicable only to participants and not to non participants the most likely explanation for this seemingly irrational phenomenon of families rejecting an increase in disposable income lies in the stigma of welfare receipt for many families consider welfare participation to be demeaning socially undesirable and or destructive of self respect and feelings of self worth however although there has been considerable discussion of the nature of stigma 13 particularly in the sociological literature 11 there is a need to establish a firm theoretical base for the phenomenon and to formally investigate its properties in this paper a model of welfare participation is developed which incorporates stigma and thus establishes such a theoretical base and estimates of the parameters of the model are obtained there are two key characteristics of the model first participation in a welfare program is introduced into the utility function under the assumption that stigma represents a distaste for welfare the desire to participate is thus formulated within a traditional consumer

the asian crisis and the shaping of proper economies the latter half of the 1990s saw a new international agenda develop the strengthening of the international financial system through the globalisation of standards and codes of best practice the author calls for critical reflection on this normalisation of free market capitalism and its global enforcement through a comprehensive system of economic standardisation and surveillance to this end michel foucault s analysis of liberalism is shown to be highly relevant

fiscal federalism in russia a critique of the oecd proposals the oecd proposes to kill two birds with one stone in russia by simultaneously improving fiscal federalism and using the financial reform process to press for full market liberalisation this paper scrutinises the initiative and finds it wanting because the consensus reforms advocated conflate the re centralisation of fiscal authority with optimal ownership property rights and effective market building perpetuating the illusion that there are no bad market systems the g 7 and putin must do better yeltsin s mis privatisation and mis liberalisation which spawned rent seeking asset stripping asset seizing and a disregard for profit maximising from current operations have proved to be path dependent and need to be rectified putin s increasingly visible efforts to rein private property rights must also be taken into account in designing on optimal fiscal federalist regime copyright 2004 oxford university press

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

the demand for school lunches an analysis of individual participation in the school lunch program in this paper we analyze participation in the national school lunch program nslp using a basic neoclassical demand model this statistical analysis incorporates nutrient consumption from nonlunch sources to control explicitly for tastes because the dependent variable takes only four values the ordered probit estimation technique is used the insights gained concerning the effects of tastes the size of the food stamp program bonus and the price of the school lunch among others should prove useful in designing future nslp policies