Volume 27, number 3 (2006)
Poverty and Development: New Explorations of an Old Theme
Introduction
“Some three decades into the war on poverty declared by the World Bank in the mid-1970s — a declaration periodically renewed in its annual World Development Report, most recently in 2002 … what is most notable … is the lack of progress, the negligible results of a decades-long struggle fought with dedicated personnel and considerable resources. Today, after several decades of pro-growth macroeconomic policies and structural reform, the problem of poverty in its diverse dimensions is as entrenched and widespread as ever, raising several questions addressed by the three papers in [this] thematic section … ”
Economic and Non-Economic Determinants of Poverty in Developing Countries: Competing Theories and Empirical Evidence
This study conducts cross-national research on 97 developing countries to test competing hypotheses of poverty. Four major theories from the social sciences were examined, including (1) economic development and openness, (2) geographical and demographical disadvantages, (3) regime characteristics and war, and (4) social policy and human capital enhancement, to determine their explanatory power by modelling the ratio of the poor to total population in those countries. Poverty is defined by living below an income of US $1 or $2 a day. Both the incidences of poverty and the poor’s income shortfall from the non-poor are analysed with ridge regression modelling. Empirical outcomes reveal that besides a country’s income level, tropics, landlockedness, population growth, and secondary schooling opportunity are significant predictors of poverty reduction, whereas political factors (democracy, military spending, and war) and government social spending are only weak predictors. No evidence was found to support the economic openness proposed by the neo-liberal school.
Banking on Poverty in Latin America: Assessing the World Bank’s ‘War on Poverty’
The World Bank has been providing policy leadership and funding in its fight against poverty in Latin America for over three decades. This “war on poverty” and its periodic reformulations are critically assessed in light of available evidence. The authors conclude that whatever its stated intentions, the World Bank and its doctrines are part of Latin America’s poverty problem, and not part of its solution.
The Evolution of Poverty in Late 20th-Century Mexico
This paper analyses the evolution of poverty in Mexico during the second half of the 20th century and points toward correlations between poverty trends and major changes to economic and social policy. Two poverty-measurement methods are used to construct a general vision of the evolution of poverty in Mexico: the poverty-line method and a variation of the unsatisfied-basic-needs method. The analysis based on the poverty-line method indicates that the incidence of poverty in Mexico decreased continuously and considerably during the last part of the import substituting industrialization (ISI) period (1963–1982), but that it has not decreased significantly since economic liberalization began in 1982; there is evidence to suggest that it has increased slightly since then. Alternatively, the analysis of basic need indicators suggests that there has been a constant and uninterrupted improvement in the satisfaction of basic needs in Mexico throughout the second half of the 20th century. However, it also indicates that the rate of satisfying basic needs has decelerated over the past two decades. Taking all of the empirical evidence presented in this paper into consideration, it appears that the social and economic policies put in place by the Mexican government over the past 20 years, have, by and large, been ineffective in reducing poverty.
Articles
Caribbean Dependency Thought Revisited
This paper assesses the contribution, limitations, and contemporary relevance of Caribbean dependency thought (CDT). CDT emerged in the early post-colonial period in the English-speaking Caribbean with a mission to extend political decolonization to the intellectual, economic, social, and cultural spheres. While part of broader international currents of radical thought, it had its own special characteristics, associated with the theory of plantation economy and society. After outlining the historical context, the paper identifies four main expressions of CDT for review: “New World” thinking on epistemic dependency; the plantation school and multinational corporations as the institutional foundations of economic dependency; other structuralist formulations of dependency; and dependency as peripheral capitalism. Also discussed are the social and political theories of dependency and their policy prescriptions. CDT had a strong influence in Caribbean intellectual and political circles in the 1970s, but it generated vigorous critiques from both Marxist and mainstream social science. The paper suggests that its eventual decline was due to several unresolved theoretical, methodological, and political issues as well as to wider intellectual and political developments. The paper concludes by pointing to the significant historical contribution of CDT to Caribbean and Third World critical thought, and argues that its stance and method have relevance to critiques of contemporary globalization.
On the Efficiency and Equity Effects of Public Sector Investment in Education in Mauritius
This paper addresses the efficiency and equity impacts of public sector investment in education in Mauritius from 1970–1999. In particular, an investigation is carried out to assess whether such investment did contribute first to greater efficiency of the workforce through higher economic growth, and, second, to a more equitable income distribution through the Gini coefficient. Our findings indicate that while public educational expenditure has led to greater efficiency through higher per capita output, its distributional effects are rather complex. The latter effects are tracked through two channels: in the direct causal sense, they are found to worsen inequality, whereas in the indirect or externality sense, they tend to reduce income inequality. However, the overall effect of such expenditure on equity is found to depend much on labour productivity.
Effet du statut foncier sur les systèmes de production et sur les revenus des familles de la communauté de Zoghmar dans le semi-aride tunisien
Several theories postulate that private ownership of land is necessary to encourage investment and adoption of new technologies. However, empirical studies do not always confirm those theories, as is the case with the present study, conducted in the Zoghmar community, located in the semi-arid region of Tunisia. Statistical analyses suggest that land tenure conditions are unrelated to alternative production systems and to the community’s socioeconomic dynamics. Several production systems were identified in the community but no statistically significant relationships were established between alternative types of land tenure and production systems. Moreover, net farm income did not seem to be related to land tenure, nor to alternative farming systems. However, the way farmers acquired their land did show a slight relationship with net farm income.
2005 Kari Polanyi Levitt Prize
Science, Politics, and Tobacco in the Developing World
Between 1950 and 1992 the World Bank lent extensively to tobacco farmers and made no attempt to implement tobacco control measures in developing countries. Since 1992, in direct contrast to its earlier policies, the World Bank has been at the forefront of producing and supporting tobacco control knowledge. How did this volte-face on tobacco control policy occur? This paper addresses the question of how tobacco control has become, and to a large extent is still becoming, a mainstream international development issue. The paper interprets the tobacco control story using a theoretical approach that unites the production of new knowledge and public action. Focusing predominantly on changes in public health policies, the paper specifically argues that knowledge is the raw material upon which agents act to create public policy and that, over time, that knowledge is moulded into policy by NGOs, private firms, states, and international organizations.
In Memoriam
The Life and Work of Professor Sir Hans Singer: An Appreciation
Hans Singer, who died on 26 February 2006 at the age of 95, was one of the most highly respected and internationally recognized development economists. He was one of that small band of pioneers who stimulated so many ideas that engaged the attention of the world community over much of the last century. As an economic activist, few people have been such indefatigable thinkers about the problems of developing countries and persistent instigators of ways of overcoming them. Instinctively practical rather than ideological, he based his theoretical work on observations, not dogma. He was one of the main intellectual architects of post-war development strategies. Educated under the two great economists, Schumpeter and Keynes, he studied unemployment and poverty first hand in Britain in the 1930s, and helped establish the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs. He went on to devote his life not just to the academic study of development economics and the problems of developing countries but also to finding practical solutions. The scale, dimension, and diversity of his 450 publications, produced over seven decades, are truly remarkable. Among his numerous positions and contributions, he was a member of the CJDS Advisory Board for many years. This appreciation attempts to summarize his main achievements.
Reviews
Natural Resources and Economic Development, Edward B. Barbier
Cambodia: Rebuilding for a Challenging Future, David T. Coe et al. (eds.)
World Disasters Report 2005: Focus on Information in Disasters, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
The Social Context of the Mau Mau Movement in Kenya (1952–1960), Kinuthia Macharia and Muigai Kanyua
W. Arthur Lewis and the Birth of Development Economics, Robert L. Tignor and The World’s Banker, Sebastian Mallaby