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The way jurisdiction over land is distributed among members of a community has a powerful influence over how efficiently land is used, the incidence of poverty, and the level of inequality in the community. Yet much land in less developed countries is underutilized and/or misused from a sustainability standpoint: lack of access to land or unfavorable terms of access remain a fundamental cause of poverty. In addition, unmet demands for land can be a source of political destabilization. At the same time, there presently exist unusual opportunities to reopen the issue of access to land. They include an increasing concern with the efficiency costs of inequality in land distribution, devolution of common property resource management to users, large scale redefinitions of property rights in the context of transition economies in Eastern and central Europe and the end of white rule in South Africa, liberalization of land markets, mounting pressure to deal with environmental issues, the proliferation of civil society organizations voicing the demands of the rural poor, and more democratic forms of governance. Much attention has been given to state-led redistributive land reforms. Other channels include inheritance and inter-vivos transfers, intrahousehold and intracommunity land allocations, community titling of open access resources, the distribution of common property resources and the individualization of rights, decollectivization, land markets and land market-assisted land reforms, and land rental contracts. This book analyzes each of these channels of access to land, and recommends ways of making them more effective.

In the development literature, some countries are cited more often than others as examples of development success. These countries are understood to have policies and institutions in place that could be transferred, at least in part, to less successful countries both within their own regions, and elsewhere in the world. As such, they may constitute ‘role models of development’. This scholarly volume contains historical accounts of a select set of successful countries in the developing world; successful by virtue of their growth and development path—albeit at times in an uneven, non-linear, and patchy manner. Each unique case describes the fundamental ‘causes’ of success: initial conditions and resources; local, regional, and international factors shaping the national state of affairs; and contributions to the development process by internal and external actors and institutions. Each country has a story to tell from which useful lessons can be drawn. While other similar works have presented cases of successful development strategies, they tend to be region-specific or constitute a relatively small number of cases. This book takes a more wide-ranging perspective involving a large number of country studies, spanning world regions and development levels.

The book provides a comprehensive account of the human development (HD) approach to development. It shows how it emerged as a consequence of defects in earlier strategies, especially growth maximization. The book investigates the determinants of success and failure in HD across developing countries over the past forty years. Cross-country investigations show broad determinants of success and failure, while country studies give detailed examples of the policies and politics of HD. HD is multidimensional, and the book points to the importance of social institutions and social capabilities as essential aspects which are often overlooked. Yet the widely cited Human Development Index does not measure these aspects nor many of the other important dimensions of HD. The book analyses political conditions which are critical factors underlying performance on HD. The final chapter surveys global progress on multiple dimensions over a forty-year period and shows that there has been marked and pervasive improvement in many of them, including basic HD—life expectancy and infant mortality, education and incomes—as well as political freedoms. But there has been deterioration on some dimensions—with rising inequality in many countries and worsening environmental conditions. The book concludes with challenges to the approach—in particular insufficient attention has been paid to the macroeconomic conditions and economic structure needed for sustained success; and social institutions and political conditions have also been neglected. But the biggest neglect is the environment—with worsening global environmental conditions potentially threatening future achievements on HD.

The Arab Spring constitutes perhaps the most far-reaching political and economic transition since the end of communism in Europe. For too long, the economic aspirations of the people in the region, especially young people, have been ignored by leaders in Arab countries and abroad. Competing views as to how best to meet these aspirations are now being debated in the region. The outcome will shape Arab societies for generations to come. This book argues that significant economic reforms must accompany the major political transitions that are underway. Although each country has a different economic structure and history and must make its own way forward, there are spill-overs from trade and investment linkages, the contagion of news cycles, interaction of people and sharing of expectations that are too great to ignore. Some common foundation of the new Arab economies is needed. Towards that end, this volume addresses four central challenges of economic reform in the Arab world. First, with two-thirds of the population under the age of thirty, the disproportionate burdens of unemployment and poor education can no longer be heaped on youth. Second, while some government policies may have improved the living standards of Arab citizens in the past, they have also entrenched cronies, enriched a small elite, and become unaffordable. Third, if Arab economies are to compete in the 21st century they cannot depend solely on oil and gas money, remittances, and tourism, but will require active, independent private sectors. And finally, the relative isolation of Arab economies—both from each other and from the world—must end. Rather than providing specific lists of recommendations, this book sets forth a set of guidelines and priorities for reformers who will begin creating new opportunities for youth, rebuilding the institutions of the state, diversifying the private sector, and cooperating with each other and integrating with the world economy.

South Korea’s economic development trajectory has been widely studied and is well understood. From an impoverished war-torn nation, the country has progressed on all fronts, including a ten-fold increase in per capita income over a forty-year period. It stands out internationally when it comes to education and politically it has moved away from authoritarianism to a more spirited democratic system. In short, it seems to have achieved it all. The question is, what does a country do after it has attained development? This volume addresses this question by examining Korea’s strategic engagement with Asia as a response to the limits of the home market. Access to new markets and resources in Asia through exports and foreign investment are critical. Additionally, with Korea’s ongoing demographic crisis, its engagement with foreign workers is also inevitable. This volume takes a collective look at how Korea is responding through regional integration, strategic industrial upgrading of exports, foreign markets and resources, and coping with migrants, including unskilled workers, students, and professionals. The transfer of Korean business and employment practices through investment to other countries and accommodating foreigners is not trouble-free. Further, prosperity imposes demands for increased social welfare, while the workings of contemporary global capitalism introduce new sources of inequality. Sharing that prosperity with small firms, irregular workers, and women becomes critical. This volume ends with a roundup of the key internal challenges facing Korean society and suggests the multiple ways to address them as a related response to Korea’s after-development prosperity.

This book contains chapters that deal with the agricultural crisis in India. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the macroeconomic and micro-level issues associated with the crisis, as well as the underlying historical forces. It examines the factors contributing to the crisis, including environmental degradation, the decrease in landholding size, plateauing of crop yields from the present farm technology, and withdrawal of state support. The book shows that rapid growth of India's gross domestic product has not created enough opportunities for rural labour force to make the transition from agriculture to the rapidly growing sectors of the economy. Agricultural transformation has been slow due to low growth of farm productivity, low agricultural prices, inadequate employment opportunities outside agriculture, and low demand for agricultural products due to stagnation of per capita food consumption during 1993–2005. The book presents case studies on farmer suicides and provides insights into their underlying causes, arguing that suicides are symptomatic of a deep-rooted crisis in agriculture. The book claims that agriculture in India can be revived only by addressing two dimensions of the agricultural distress, namely, agricultural development crisis and agrarian crisis. It emphasizes the need to improve public investment in agricultural infrastructure and social overheads such as quality education and health facilities in rural areas.

There are many books about aid and development, but most of them either assume a good deal of prior knowledge about the subject, or are written to make the case for or against aid. This book sets aid and development in its historical context, and shows the strong linkages between aid and development priorities on the one hand, and political realities and shifts on the other. It looks at different ideas about development (and concepts of ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries) and how aid can support development. It makes it clear that, ultimately, development is about the well-being of everyone, and of the planet, and must be addressed as a global issue.

From an unpromising start as ‘the basket case’ to present-day plaudits for its human development achievements, Bangladesh plays an ideological role in the contemporary world order, offering proof that the neo-liberal development model works under the most testing conditions. How were such rapid gains possible in a context of chronically weak governance? The Aid Lab subjects this so-called ‘Bangladesh paradox’ to close scrutiny, evaluating public policies and their outcomes for poverty and development since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. Countering received wisdom that its gains owe to an early shift to market-oriented economic reform, it argues that a binding political settlement, a social contract to protect against the crises of subsistence and survival, united the elite, the masses, and their aid donors in the wake of the devastating famine of 1974. This laid resilient foundations for human development, fostering a focus on the poorest and most precarious, and in particular on the concerns of women. In chapters examining the environmental, political, and socioeconomic crisis of the 1970s, the book shows how the lessons of the famine led to a robustly pro-poor growth and social policy agenda, empowering the Bangladeshi state and its non-governmental organizations to protect and enable its population to thrive in its engagements in the global economy. Now a middle-income country, Bangladesh’s role as the world’s laboratory for aided development has generated lessons well beyond its borders, and Bangladesh continues to carve a pioneering pathway through the risks of global economic integration and climate change.

This book provides an integrative framework for the anthropological demography of health, a field of interdisciplinary population research grounded in ethnography and in critical examination of the social, political, and economic histories that have shaped relations between peoples. The field has grown from the 1990s, extending to a remarkable range of key human and policy issues, including: genetic disorders; nutrition; mental health; infant, child and maternal morbidity; malaria; HIV/AIDS; disability and chronic diseases; new reproductive technologies; and population ageing. Collaboration with social, medical, and demographic historians enables these issues to be situated in the evolution of institutional structures and inequalities that shape health and care access. Understanding fertility levels and trends has widened beyond parity and contraception to the many life course risks and alternative healing systems that shape reproductive health. By going beyond conventional demographic and epidemiological methods, and idealised macro/micro-level units, the anthropological demography of health places people’s health-seeking behaviour in a compositional demography based on ethnographic observation of group formation and change over time, and of variance between what people say and do. It tracks family and community networks; class, linguistic, and religious groups; sectoral labour and market distributions; health and healing specialisms; and relations between these bodies and with groups controlling local and national governments. The approach enables examination of how local cultures and experience are translated formally into measures on which survey and clinical programmes rely, thus testing the empirical adequacy of such translations, and leading to revision of concepts of risk and governance.

The year 2008 marks Amartya Sen's 75th birthday. Amartya has made deep and lasting contributions to the academic disciplines of economics, philosophy, and more broadly the social sciences. He has engaged in policy dialogue and public debate, advancing the cause of a human development focused policy agenda, and a tolerant and democratic polity. This argumentative Indian has made the case for the poorest of the poor, and for plurality in cultural perspective. It is not surprising that he has won the highest awards, ranging from the Nobel Prize in Economics to the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honor. This public recognition has gone hand in hand with the affection and admiration that Amartya's colleagues and students hold for him. This is the first book in a two-volume Festschrift for Amartya Sen. The chapters, from across a range of social science disciplines, are written by some of the world's leading thinkers. This first book covers the topics of ethics, normative economics, and welfare; agency, aggregation, and social choice; poverty, capabilities, and measurement; and identity, collective action, and public economics. It is a fitting tribute to Sen's own contributions to the discourse on ethics, welfare and measurement.

The year 2008 marks Amartya Sen's 75th birthday. Amartya has made deep and lasting contributions to the academic disciplines of economics, philosophy, and the social sciences more broadly. He has engaged in policy dialogue and public debate, advancing the cause of a human development focused policy agenda, and a tolerant and democratic polity. This argumentative Indian has made the case for the poorest of the poor, and for plurality in cultural perspective. It is not surprising that he has won the highest awards, ranging from the Nobel Prize in Economics to the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honor. This public recognition has gone hand in hand with the affection and admiration that Amartya's colleagues and students hold for him. This is the second book in a two-volume Festschrift for Amartya Sen. The chapters, from across a range of social science disciplines, are written by some of the world's leading thinkers. This second book covers the topics of human development and capabilities; gender and household; growth, poverty, and policy; and society, politics, and history. It is a fitting tribute to Sen's own contributions to the discourse on society, institutions and development.

South Korea has been quietly growing into a major economic force that is even challenging some Japanese industries. This book examines South Korean economic growth as an example of “late industrialization,” a process in which a nation's industries learn from earlier innovator nations rather than innovate themselves. Discussing state intervention, shop‐floor management, and big business groups, the reasons are explored for South Korea's phenomenal growth, paying special attention to the principle of reciprocity in which the government imposes strict performance standards on those industries and companies that it aids. It is shown thereby how South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan were able to grow faster than other emerging nations such as Brazil, Turkey, India, and Mexico. The book is arranged in three main parts: Part 1 surveys South Korean history and the origins of state policies that led to the successes of its late industrialization; Part 2 examines the ways in which the South Korean management and workforce were transformed into major factors in the growth of its industry; and Part 3 discusses the creation of comparative advantage in several industries and the reasons why only one kept pace with expansion while the others drove it.

This book provides a methodology to evaluate the impacts of a wide diversity of development projects and policies on local economies. Projects and policies often create spillovers within project areas. LEWIE uses simulation methods to quantify these spillovers. It has become a complement to randomized control trials (RCTs), as governments and donors become interested in documenting impacts beyond the treated, comparing the likely impacts of alternative interventions, and designing complementary interventions to influence program and policy impacts. It is also a tool for impact evaluation where RCTs are not feasible. Chapters 1–4 motivate and present the basics of impact simulation, including how to design a LEWIE model, how to estimate the model, and how to obtain the necessary data. The remaining chapters provide a diversity of interesting real-world applications and extensions of the basic models. The applications include evaluations of the impacts of cash transfers for the poor, ecotourism, global food-price shocks, irrigation projects, migration, and corruption.

This volume reviews the most recent research on brain drain and brain gain, producing new original results by the means of data sources specifically assembled for this study, and addressing several key policy issues. Part I focuses on brain gain, that is, it takes the standpoint of the recipient country. The first section provides an overview of skill‐selective immigration policies in the main destination countries and of the major shifts in these policies which have been recently observed. It also documents the strong economic gains from immigration of highly skilled migrants. But what drives the decisions of highly skilled migrants as to where to locate? The econometric analyses performed by the authors indicate that it is mainly the labour market that is key to attracting talent, wage premia on education in particular. R&D spending also induces greater inflows of highly skilled migrants, while generous welfare benefits and strict employment protection end up attracting more unskilled workers. Part II is devoted to the consequences of brain drain, taking the point of view of the sending country. This second section provides for the first time a measure of the net global impact of the brain drain on sending countries. The results indicate that most developing countries experience a net gain from skilled emigration. Adverse overall impacts are found to be limited only to a subset of countries exhibiting very high skilled emigration rates. A number of policy recommendations are also offered to increase the benefits of brain drain.

Despite growing consensus on the ‘right’ policies for reconstruction and peacebuilding in post-conflict societies, there is still little knowledge how the implementation of such policies impacts the durability of peace. This book aims to address this void by analysing the timing and sequencing of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding processes. It brings together insights from thematic analyses and country experiences, presented by experts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. The thematic chapters deal with, among others, issues of poverty reduction and social development; economic reforms and reconstruction; democratization; DDR and reconciliation. The case-study chapters cover ongoing and terminated conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The central questions the book poses are: when different peacebuilding reforms, interventions, and measures can best be implemented to increase the chances that a peace process will be successful and durable; how these different peacebuilding reforms, interventions, and measures interact and relate to one and other; whether there is a particular sequence in which certain measures and policies can best be implemented to increase the chances that a peace process will be successful; and what type of peacebuilding projects and programmes are best initiated by different international actors and at what time. The book concludes that while there clearly is no magic sequence of peacebuilding, there are some priorities that clearly merit prioritization and do not conflict significantly with other priorities. It is argued that these ‘people-centred priorities’ can be used to guide the timing and sequencing of peacebuilding interventions in specific cases and contexts.