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Some aspects of development strategy and policies
1074
WORLDDEVELOPMENT
(0.06-0.95).
As would be expected, countries which have experienced the greatest industrialization, such as Brazil, Mexico and Republic of Korea, show the greatest structural similarity to developed market economies. The data places in relief, therefore, the growing dualism among developing countries. Where aggregated data show reasonable growth of industrial output and modest structural change for developing countries as a whole, disaggregation reveals that the impetus for both growth and structural change is concentrated among relatively few countries with the remainder left largely in the backwash. Again and again, in like fashion, the data places emerging trends in relief and helps to set the stage for identification of the foci for policy concern in the 1980s. Chapter VI, ‘Industrial Processing of Natural Resources’, is especially interesting and highlights the level of serious scholarship that marks much of the volume. Here individual industries are investigated from the point of view of the processing chains involved in going from raw material to the final product. This technique allows new insight into trade patterns and makes much clearer the extent to which future industrialization may be based upon further processing of exports. The chapter entitled ‘Financing Industrial Development’ is somewhat disappointing in that it is only inferentially concerned with industrial development. Instead of isolating financial flows destined for the industrial sector, the chapter deals with aggregate domestic savings and aggregate international capital flows and largely utilizes previously published OECD data. It therefore does not call upon the peculiar expertise of UNIDO and consequently gives us little information not previously available in other sources.
Some Aspects of Development pp. 18 1 ; Rs. 30/-).
Strategy
The overall impact of reading this volume is to be reminded of the importance of industrialization in the development process. In this regard the Survey can be viewed as a useful counterbalance to the dominant trends of the 1970s which have tended to overstate the negative aspects of industrialization and to glorify the role of agriculture. No statement in the present volume disparages the important role of agriculture nor that of the informal sector and yet one can hardly give serious attention to the material without realizing that industrialization is part and parcel of development. The importance of the Survey aside, it must be noted that it is not a volume that furnishes unalloyed reading pleasure from cover to cover. Being the product of a number of specialists, the style of writing and the quality of analysis vary somewhat from chapter to chapter. Further, the flow of thought is occasionally interrupted by the now familiar UN agency strategy of catering to the positions of the various major political groups that make up the organization. This is sometimes boring, sometimes ludicrous, but, on the whole, understandable, given the nature of the UN. Also, as we have noted, the volume is loaded with data. For some, such a load can be a burden; for others a gold mine. In summary, the Survey is not light reading. It is serious work presented for the serious reader. Whether the reader be student, professor, practitioner or political official, time spent in judicious reading of the Survey should yield gains in excess of opportunity costs. William E. Cole Professor of Economics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
and Policies.
This book, initially designed as a series of lectures to senior government officials from developing countries, succeeds admirably in combining analysis with policy, exposition of techniques with awareness of their limitations, and practicality with vision. It offers a sense of history, both of developing societies and of the theories about them, and it reveals a wide range of reading outside economics. Mr. Bhatt plants
By V. V. Bhatt (Bombay:
Vora, 1978;
the technical analysis into the rich soil of living societies. He is also keenly aware of the values and valuations underlying all social activities. Mr. Bhatt’s book ranges from one chapter on industrial project appraisal to one on the new ideology of development. Different explanations of the development process are clearly expounded. There is a discussion of payments unions for developing countries as instruments
BOOK REVIEWS for trade promotion and one on the role of external assistance. Mr. Bhatt’s heroes are Schumpeter, Gandhi, Gerschenkron and Galbraith, but building on Harrod-Domar, a whole appendix is devoted to aggregative planning
1075
models. It is a highly readable, civilized book on the most important issue of our time. Paul P. Streeten
WORLDDEVELOPMENT
(0.06-0.95).
As would be expected, countries which have experienced the greatest industrialization, such as Brazil, Mexico and Republic of Korea, show the greatest structural similarity to developed market economies. The data places in relief, therefore, the growing dualism among developing countries. Where aggregated data show reasonable growth of industrial output and modest structural change for developing countries as a whole, disaggregation reveals that the impetus for both growth and structural change is concentrated among relatively few countries with the remainder left largely in the backwash. Again and again, in like fashion, the data places emerging trends in relief and helps to set the stage for identification of the foci for policy concern in the 1980s. Chapter VI, ‘Industrial Processing of Natural Resources’, is especially interesting and highlights the level of serious scholarship that marks much of the volume. Here individual industries are investigated from the point of view of the processing chains involved in going from raw material to the final product. This technique allows new insight into trade patterns and makes much clearer the extent to which future industrialization may be based upon further processing of exports. The chapter entitled ‘Financing Industrial Development’ is somewhat disappointing in that it is only inferentially concerned with industrial development. Instead of isolating financial flows destined for the industrial sector, the chapter deals with aggregate domestic savings and aggregate international capital flows and largely utilizes previously published OECD data. It therefore does not call upon the peculiar expertise of UNIDO and consequently gives us little information not previously available in other sources.
Some Aspects of Development pp. 18 1 ; Rs. 30/-).
Strategy
The overall impact of reading this volume is to be reminded of the importance of industrialization in the development process. In this regard the Survey can be viewed as a useful counterbalance to the dominant trends of the 1970s which have tended to overstate the negative aspects of industrialization and to glorify the role of agriculture. No statement in the present volume disparages the important role of agriculture nor that of the informal sector and yet one can hardly give serious attention to the material without realizing that industrialization is part and parcel of development. The importance of the Survey aside, it must be noted that it is not a volume that furnishes unalloyed reading pleasure from cover to cover. Being the product of a number of specialists, the style of writing and the quality of analysis vary somewhat from chapter to chapter. Further, the flow of thought is occasionally interrupted by the now familiar UN agency strategy of catering to the positions of the various major political groups that make up the organization. This is sometimes boring, sometimes ludicrous, but, on the whole, understandable, given the nature of the UN. Also, as we have noted, the volume is loaded with data. For some, such a load can be a burden; for others a gold mine. In summary, the Survey is not light reading. It is serious work presented for the serious reader. Whether the reader be student, professor, practitioner or political official, time spent in judicious reading of the Survey should yield gains in excess of opportunity costs. William E. Cole Professor of Economics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
and Policies.
This book, initially designed as a series of lectures to senior government officials from developing countries, succeeds admirably in combining analysis with policy, exposition of techniques with awareness of their limitations, and practicality with vision. It offers a sense of history, both of developing societies and of the theories about them, and it reveals a wide range of reading outside economics. Mr. Bhatt plants
By V. V. Bhatt (Bombay:
Vora, 1978;
the technical analysis into the rich soil of living societies. He is also keenly aware of the values and valuations underlying all social activities. Mr. Bhatt’s book ranges from one chapter on industrial project appraisal to one on the new ideology of development. Different explanations of the development process are clearly expounded. There is a discussion of payments unions for developing countries as instruments
BOOK REVIEWS for trade promotion and one on the role of external assistance. Mr. Bhatt’s heroes are Schumpeter, Gandhi, Gerschenkron and Galbraith, but building on Harrod-Domar, a whole appendix is devoted to aggregative planning
1075
models. It is a highly readable, civilized book on the most important issue of our time. Paul P. Streeten