International technology transfer and catch-up in economic development

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Vijay Joshi

" India's economic resurgence has been the subject of many extravagant predictions and hopes. In this powerful and wide-ranging book, distinguished economist Vijay Joshi lays out a penetrating analysis of the shaky foundations of the country's performance, and charts the course that it should follow to achieve widely-shared prosperity. Joshi argues that for India to realize its huge potential, the relation between the state, the market, and the private sector must be comprehensively realigned. Deeper liberalization and more extensive privatisation will be necessary. But they will not suffice to achieve India's economic objectives. The state needs to perform much more effectively many core tasks that belong squarely in its domain. India needs more of the market as well as more of the state. The road India takes will matter not only for the lives of its billion-plus people but also for the course of global economics and politics. In the course of his enquiry, Joshi examines in depth all the critical areas of Indian development policy, including employment and the 'demographic bulge'; investment and productivity; the markets for goods, resources, and finance; macroeconomic stability; public sector banks and enterprises; the infrastructure deficit; social protection and safety nets; education and health care; environmental sustainability; international economic relations; state capacity and accountability; and corruption and crony capitalism. His design for radical reform incorporates a fiscally affordable scheme to provide a regular 'basic income' for all citizens that would speedily abolish extreme poverty. An authoritative work of tremendous scope and depth, India's Long Road will be an essential resource for anyone who wants to know where India is today, where it is headed, and what it should do to attain its ambitions. "-- "India's surge in high, well-sustained economic growth captured the world's attention for much of the period from the 1990s to the early 2010s. Often paired with China as being at the leading edge of emerging economies, the last few years have witnessed shortfalls in India's performance, which have also occurred in the cases of other "BRICS," namely, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa. India is now facing a possible fiscal crisis, higher inflation, greater concentration of economic wealth, and a slowdown in productivity. While its business sector remains vigorous, the Indian state has not yet found a viable way to fund food subsidies or come to grips with the costs of its employment guarantee program. Corruption also hinders growth at many turns. All these factors bring into question how feasible or wise it is for India to pursue a path toward global political power rather than concentrate on improved economic engagement worldwide. Dr. Joshi believes India's economic problems are serious and systemic, not a temporary blip. His analysis sets forth that the only way the country can truly prosper is to find the means to return to the earlier levels of growth through massive economic reform. This policy reorientation calls for eliminating price controls as well as both explicit and hidden subsidies to industries, introduction of direct cash transfers to the poor in place of the state's own costly production of goods and services, and an aggressive move toward privatization rather than over-reliance on family firms and widely-held corporations. Without these, the requisites of economic stability cannot be fully established, let alone propel significant growth"--

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Philip Arestis

Bringing together different perspectives on structural adjustments and the prospect for sustainable economic growth in Eastern Europe, Economics of Transition represents a shift in scholarly emphasis away from issues of stabilization and liberalization in favour of longer-term considerations. This major volume features a distinguished collection of papers focusing on the theoretical and policy implications of transition and change in Eastern Europe. Drawing on work from a wide range of traditions, the papers in this volume examine issues including how effective demand induces growth, how diffusion takes place, how economic policy influences incentives, motivations and behaviours, how institutions influence organization and technological capability building, and how institutions both constrain and guide economic policy.

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Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson

"Early Economic Thought in Spain was published in 1978, and in her Foreword the author mentions that the discussion of long-term inflation in Spain from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries ought to be of interest since "we live in a time of inflation". The book can also be read as a history of Spanish responses to the decline of empire. At a number of points the author indicates that her study can be understood as a supplement to Joseph Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis (1954). The chief contribution of this book is a review and summary of the development of economic thinking from the earliest days until about 1740 in one of the most important countries of Europe. Despite, or maybe because, Spain was in decline much of the last two centuries of this period, we are provided, as it were, with a ring-side seat for watching intellectuals come to terms with the forces behind such decline. Some of it, such as inflation, debt-financing, military over-extension, mercantilist protectionism, the preference of elites for their own economic benefit at the expense of the state, and more, will be familiar to readers who are familiar with the economic history of the last hundred years. If the distant mirror of history can help us avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, here is one place to find it. This book is dedicated to the memory of Leonard Liggio (1933-2014)"--

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Jorge F. Pérez-López

Without doubt, Cuba is facing its most serious economic challenge in nearly thirty-five years of revolutionary rule. There is consensus that as the official, centrally planned economy has faltered, ordinary citizens eke out a living only by engaging in under-the-table, unrecorded, and mostly illegal activities. In fact, this second economy" is growing by leaps and bounds. This volume sketches the contours of the very complex phenomenon of the second economy of socialist Cuba, and discusses its evolution over time, as well as the role that it may play in the transition to a market economy on the island. The economic crisis of the 1990s has propelled the second economy from behind the scenes to center stage. Not only have black markets mushroomed, but second economy activities connected to the free-market that the Castro government has traditionally discouraged or even prosecuted are now being incorporated into the government's own economic strategy. Self-employment, cultivation of individual plots, and the use of foreign currencies to buy or sell goods, are now promoted with considerable enthusiasm by the leadership. Perez-Lopez examines different ways of thinking about unregulated economic activities that have been set forth in the literature and concludes that the concept of the second economy is the most appropriate for Cuba. He brings together available information from a multitude of sources on the manifestations of the second economy in Cuba and of its operation. Cuba's Second Economy is a timely study of an economic system in crisis. It will be of interest to economists, political scientists, policymakers, and Latin America area scholars.