Peripheral Visions of Economic Development


Book Description

This book explores peripheral visions on economic development, both in the sense that it deals with specific issues of economic development and underdevelopment in countries at the periphery of the world economy, and in terms of its exploration of the economic thinking developed in those regions, particularly in Latin America. Bringing together an international group of historians of thought, economic historians and development economists from Latin America, Europe and other parts of the world, this volume is highly credited and is an excellent contribution to development economic studies. This book is divided into four parts. Following the introduction, the first set of papers describes the evolution of core-periphery perspectives in key contributions by Raúl Prebisch, Oskar Lange, Albert Hirschman, Celso Furtado and Homero Cuevas. The second set discusses the links between unbalanced productive structures and external trade in peripheral countries. The third set contains papers on critical episodes in the development of monetary and financial systems in Latin America during the 19th and 20th centuries. The fourth set deals with geographical and institutional aspects of path dependence in the governance of external trade and in the development of liberties, property rights and economic education in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Several chapters make use of hitherto unexplored archival material. Other chapters draw attention to important episodes or literatures that have largely gone unnoticed in the English-speaking world. Yet others combine conceptual innovations with work on new historical data and other sources hitherto not utilized in such contexts. This book is ideal for those who study and research development economics, history of economic thought and economic history, especially in Latin America.







The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901-1986


Book Description

Raúl Prebisch was a leader in economic development theory and international economic policy, an institution builder, and an international diplomat. The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch provides the first book-length account of his life and work, a story cast against the backdrop of Latin America, the Cold War, the rise of the United Nations, and the struggle for equity between first and third worlds. A wunderkind, Prebisch occupied key positions at the Argentine ministry of finance in his twenties and was the general manager of the Argentine Central Bank before forty. Exiled by Juan Perón after World War II, he became arguably the most influential Latin American official at the UN, heading such international organizations as the Economic Commission for Latin America and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.




A Southern Perspective on Development Studies


Book Description

Episodes in the history of Latin American social sciences and the various discursive formations communicated by means of a Western-centric language might be especially uncomfortable or intractable to the reader, if the narrative that follows aims to reveal a whole set of misapprehensions by the Western-centric tradition. Starting with the misrecognition of the existence of an autochthonous regional discourse on economics, which requires reexamination. Hopefully, the narrative will become “uncomfortable”, which means that the account has a tale to tell!




Raúl Prebisch


Book Description




Bringing Aztlan to Mexican Chicago


Book Description

Bringing Aztlán to Mexican Chicago is the autobiography of Jóse Gamaliel González, an impassioned artist willing to risk all for the empowerment of his marginalized and oppressed community. Through recollections emerging in a series of interviews conducted over a period of six years by his friend Marc Zimmerman, González looks back on his life and his role in developing Mexican, Chicano, and Latino art as a fundamental dimension of the city he came to call home. Born near Monterey, Mexico, and raised in a steel mill town in northwest Indiana, González studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. Settling in Chicago, he founded two major art groups: El Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) in the 1970s and Mi Raza Arts Consortium (MIRA) in the 1980s. With numerous illustrations, this book portrays González's all-but-forgotten community advocacy, his commitments and conflicts, and his long struggle to bring quality arts programming to the city. By turns dramatic and humorous, his narrative also covers his bouts of illness, his relationships with other artists and arts promoters, and his place within city and barrio politics.




International Economics and Development


Book Description

International Economics and Development: Essays in Honor of Raúl Prebisch provides information pertinent to the developments in the field of international economies as it relates to the problems of the underdeveloped countries. This book provides a brief biography of Professor Raúl Prebisch and his many contributions to international economics. Organized into eight parts encompassing 22 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the influence of Prebisch on Latin American international development policy. This text then examines the problem that has always been of real concern to the U.N. since the creation of the organization, namely, the social and economic development of underdeveloped countries. Other chapters consider the problem of economic development of the countries newly involved in the process of growth. This book discusses as well the relationship between stability conditions of real and monetary models of international trade. The final chapter deals with the characteristics of underdevelopment. This book is a valuable resource for economists.




Economic Growth, second edition


Book Description

The long-awaited second edition of an important textbook on economic growth—a major revision incorporating the most recent work on the subject. This graduate level text on economic growth surveys neoclassical and more recent growth theories, stressing their empirical implications and the relation of theory to data and evidence. The authors have undertaken a major revision for the long-awaited second edition of this widely used text, the first modern textbook devoted to growth theory. The book has been expanded in many areas and incorporates the latest research. After an introductory discussion of economic growth, the book examines neoclassical growth theories, from Solow-Swan in the 1950s and Cass-Koopmans in the 1960s to more recent refinements; this is followed by a discussion of extensions to the model, with expanded treatment in this edition of heterogenity of households. The book then turns to endogenous growth theory, discussing, among other topics, models of endogenous technological progress (with an expanded discussion in this edition of the role of outside competition in the growth process), technological diffusion, and an endogenous determination of labor supply and population. The authors then explain the essentials of growth accounting and apply this framework to endogenous growth models. The final chapters cover empirical analysis of regions and empirical evidence on economic growth for a broad panel of countries from 1960 to 2000. The updated treatment of cross-country growth regressions for this edition uses the new Summers-Heston data set on world income distribution compiled through 2000.




Setbacks and Advances in the Modern Latin American Economy


Book Description

This volume explores several notable themes related to the economy in Latin America and offers insightful historical perspectives to understand national, regional, and global issues in the continent since the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. The collected essays focus on economic crises, the relationship of growth models to society and politics, the fluctuations of local economies, and regional protests. Other aspects of consideration in this area include the evolution of integrated regional trading blocs, the informal economy, and the destruction of the productive potential that has had a serious social, cultural, and environmental impact. The volume refuses to impose a traditional and uncritical linear historical narrative onto the reader and instead proposes an alternative interpretation of the past and its relation to the present.