Recent book reviews published in Choice. In their words, Choice is the “premier source for reviews of academic books, electronic media, and Internet resources of interest to those in higher education. More than 35,000 librarians, faculty, and key decision makers rely on Choice magazine and Choice Reviews Online for collection development and scholarly research. Choice reaches almost every undergraduate college and university library in the United States.”
Choice Vol. 60, Issue 7
Mar 2023
Review of Bacchus, James. Trade links: new rules for a new world. Cambridge, 2022.
The links binding the world together are fraying. Nations have left problems that require concerted action to fester. Progress has been painfully slow on the three dimensions of sustainable development—social, economic, and environmental—that lie at the heart of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, all to be met by 2030. And the COVID-19 pandemic, the shadows of which continue to linger grimly, served only to exacerbate tensions among nations, throwing into sharper relief the array and magnitude of the challenges both developed and developing countries face. But says Bacchus (global affairs, Univ. of Florida, and founding judge, World Trade Organization), a primary vehicle for international cooperation, the World Trade Organization (WTO), can play a significant role in how the world can tackle these problems. The WTO itself was hamstrung over the last two decades, unable to craft a global trade agreement during the period, but under new leadership, it has stirred to life with accords on intellectual property and COVID vaccines, fishing subsidies, and digital trade. More of this sort of cooperation—on areas ranging from trade in agriculture and services to climate waivers—is sorely needed to change the degraded links to lasting ones.
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Choice Vol. 60, Issue 4
Dec 2022
Review of Barbier, Edward. Economics for a fragile planet: rethinking markets, institutions and governance. Cambridge, 2022.
Exuding urgency and hope, this book arrives at a timely juncture as governments and institutions come to grips with the alarming consequences of decades of environmental neglect. Barbier (Colorado State Univ.) traces the evolving relationship between humans and the planet over the millennia, noting the concomitant impact on the environment. The advent of the Industrial Revolution sparked the fossil fuel age, with the rising consumption of coal and then oil. The current era, the Great Acceleration—marked by rapid industrialization and the significant use of minerals and energy—has created four critical environmental threats: climate change, land use and loss of biodiversity, freshwater scarcity, and degrading coastal habitats. How to deal with these looming problems forms the bulk of the book. Barbier’s solutions rest on key principles: the “underpricing of nature”—i.e., ignoring the true societal cost of development—must end; collective action by groups, including businesses, local governments, and nations, is essential; absolute limits must be placed to prevent the breach of “planetary boundaries”; and sustainable and inclusive development requires fealty to intergenerational equity and reduced income inequality. All in all, a compelling book with thoughtful solutions.
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Choice Vol. 60, Issue 1
Sept 2022
Review of Regional development banks in the world economy, ed. by Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz Fuentes, and David Howarth. Oxford, 2021.
Clifton and Fuentes (both, Univ. Cantabria, Spain) and Howarth (Univ. of Luxembourg) argue convincingly that regional development banks (RDBs) merit close attention. Most RDBs narrowly focus on parts of the world, e.g., the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank. Some are large: the European Investment Bank has made more loans than the World Bank, the leading multilateral development bank, since 1991. Others are more recent: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank began operations in 2016. Among the functions of RDBs are promoting development, notably through infrastructure lending, regional integration, and industrial policy. The degree of organizational fealty to each function varies because of economic developments, such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 Great Recession, and the management decisions of boards of directors. The volume is laid out in two parts. The first section describes the origins and objectives of eight RDBs and traces their evolution using a principal-agent framework. The second examines RDBs in a political-economic context and notes the differences and similarities among the organizations. As a whole, this book sheds light on a frequently overlooked, yet critical, force of economic development.
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Choice Vol. 58, Issue 8
April 2021
Review of Gulotty, Robert. Narrowing the channel: the politics of regulatory protection in international trade. Chicago, 2020.
Multinational corporations, with their operations spread over countries, may be presumed to detest trade barriers of any kind. They would favor trade liberalization and exert pressure on governments to reduce their intervention in the form of import tariffs and other such trade instruments. And indeed, the average tariff rate in developed countries has fallen sharply over the decades to around 5 percent today. But trade is increasingly subject to government regulation on a wide range of products, a phenomenon that Gulotty (Univ. of Chicago) explains by considering the nature of foreign direct investment, which has grown substantially in recent decades and presents large corporations with the prospect of increasing profits through enhanced government regulation. Governments are willing to implement regulatory measures, citing their role in promoting the safety of consumer products, for instance, but these measures can also benefit the local affiliates of multinational corporations and large exporting firms, which could increase domestic employment, raise tax revenues, and generate financial largesse for politicians. Gulotty adeptly combines a theory of regulatory protection with empirical evidence from various industries to make his case, and he concludes with implications for the future of the global trading regime.
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Choice Vol. 58, Issue 6
Feb 2021
Review of Knoop, Todd A. Understanding economic inequality: bigger pies and just deserts. E. Elgar, 2020.
Knoop (Cornell) contends that economists have largely neglected the subject of income inequality. Their models have been preoccupied with efficiency, captured in Adam Smith’s invisible hand doctrine, with some celebrated economists even decrying the tendency to worry too much about inequality. Knoop argues that the idea of a trade-off between efficiency and equitable distribution, as often described in introductory economics, is not only simplistic but also pernicious. Such mainstream treatments are difficult to reconcile with recent trends—for example, the increasing divergence of productivity and inflation-adjusted wages since 1973. They also tend to neglect findings from psychology, philosophy, political science, and sociology on issues of fairness, trust, polarization, and populism—findings that contribute to a richer understanding of income inequality. Knoop discusses how inequality is measured, why it matters, and how it has changed in recent times. The global aspects of inequality and the role of institutions and public policy are explored in later chapters. Knoop concludes with a discussion of how artificial intelligence, climate change, and likely changes in globalization patterns can affect inequality, and he proposes various measures to deal with them.
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Choice Vol. 57, Issue 11
July 2020
Review of Business and development series: issues and perspectives, ed. by Peter Lund-Thomsen, Michael Wendelboe Hansen, and Adam Lindgreen. Routledge, 2019.
The scope of this volume is ambitious. The editors (all, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark) intend the volume to establish business and development studies as an emerging academic discipline. The myriad ways the private sector can support development have been tested, implemented, and analyzed in wide-ranging fieldwork in low-income countries (the global South); however, these disparate efforts—and the lessons learned from them—have not been brought together for study as a coherent, well-defined, academic subject. This omission is what the editors and their fellow contributors propose to rectify in this book. An introductory essay (part 1) lays out the salient issues of the new discipline. The essays in part 2 analyze the links between the state, the private sector, and development; the next part delves into the role of global value chains and the attendant issue of responsible business practices in emerging economies. The idea of international businesses’ social responsibility is fleshed out in detail in part 4. Part 5 considers the importance of local firms and organizations in development, with a focus on microfinance and social entrepreneurship. All in all, an engaging volume that may prove to be the foundation for a new business discipline.
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Choice Vol. 57, Issue 8
April 2020
Review of Meeting globalization’s challenges: policies to make trade work for all, ed. by Luis Catão and Maurice Obstfeld. Princeton, 2019.
The path to global economic integration has not always been smooth. In the 1800s, advances in communications and transportation made trade cheaper. Exports of goods outpaced growth in world output, capital moved freely across borders, and the US experienced a surge in immigration. But the interwar period saw globalization decline, only to be succeeded, after WW II, by yet another powerful surge in economic integration, as institutions such as the GATT (precursor to the World Trade Organization) helped dismantle trade barriers around the world. The “hyperglobalization” of the 1990s, however, ended with the global financial crisis of 2008–09. In the years since, the puissant trade linkages of earlier periods have not reestablished themselves. The contributors to this excellent volume ask why. Concerns about unequal gains from globalization, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and adverse effects of immigration have come to the fore. The book dissects the problem and globalization’s latest discontents, and proposes remedies: governments must do more in the areas of education and worker training, and the WTO will have to deal with the more complicated issues of state subsidies, digital trade, and intellectual property rights. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. — S. Paul, Elizabethtown College
Choice Vol. 56, Issue 12
Aug 2019
Review of Rasmus, Jack. Alexander Hamilton and the origins of the Fed. Lexington Books, 2019.
When the Federal Reserve came into existence in 1913, the name of the institution deliberately did not include the words central bank. As Rasmus points out, since the time of Hamilton, there had been a tension between the need for a central bank and the centralization of economic and political power that such an entity would represent. Better then to set up a system of regional banks vested with the power to issue a single currency, regulate interest rates, and serve as the lender of last resort. The Fed’s structure departed from Hamilton’s notion of a hybrid bank that merged private and public interests. Early experiments, such as the First Bank of the United States, foundered in large part because of the subjugation of the public interest by private banks beholden to their shareholders. Rasmus deftly limns Hamilton’s vision for a central bank, and the description of the myriad financial crises and banking panics dotting the 19th and early 20th centuries highlights the need for a monetary authority independent of both political pressure and private interests. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. — S. Paul, Elizabethtown College
Review in December 2018 issue of Choice.
Kar, Sohini. Financing poverty: labor and risk in Indian microfinance. Stanford, 2018.
By offering loans to borrowers neglected by traditional banks, microfinance promises to unleash a culture of entrepreneurship among the poor. Kar’s book, an ethnographic study of borrowers, debt collectors, and loan managers in Kolkata, one of India’s most populated cities, provides grounds for skepticism. Loans are meant to create sustainable businesses, but the precariousness of the borrowers’ existence inevitably leads to funds being diverted to alternative, less-productive activities. When repayment becomes tenuous, problems arise among borrower groups and between borrowers and debt collectors. Publicly traded microfinance institutions are beholden to their shareholders. Doing well by doing good may sound like an admirable precept, but in practice, hard choices have to be made, often injecting greater uncertainty into the lives of borrowers. Microfinance institutions also have to contend with politics and the prospect of undesirable regulations. Despite a raft of problems, notes Kar (London School of Economics, UK), microfinance can yield improvements in people’s lives, provided the poor can count on adequate public provision of basic social services.
Review in March 2018 issue of Choice.
Rodrik, Dani. Straight talk on trade: ideas for a sane world economy. Princeton, 2017.
In making a persuasive case for the primacy of the nation-state and the importance of global governance, Rodrik (Harvard) pulls no punches. Globalization enriches corporate elites, whose increasingly jaundiced view of the government in recent years has served to preclude suitable policy making that could improve the lives of ordinary citizens. In the view of the elites, unfettered trade is seen as entirely beneficial, while any whiff of taxes or regulations is to be condemned as an obstacle in the drive to accumulate wealth. But Rodrik reserves his deeper ire for fellow economists who, either out of naiveté or pusillanimity, have lent unqualified intellectual support to such views. In public discourse, academic economists extol the virtues of “hyperglobalization” and the efficacy of multilateral trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But in the rarified environs of a graduate seminar, they are less certain: gains from trade are unevenly distributed, economies are beset by market failures, trade restrictions can improve well-being. Rodrik calls on intellectuals and policy makers to be more open about the benefits and costs of globalization in order to counter the “nativist, illiberal platform” underpinning recent populist movements
Review in Jan 2018 issue of Choice.
Moak, Ken. Developed nations and the economic impact of globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
As a palliative to the current angst over globalization, this book could not have come at a better time. Developed Nations argues that the forces arrayed against globalization will be short-lived. A slew of powerful groups in advanced countries—multinational corporations, universities, non-governmental organizations—will succeed in restoring the ineluctable march towards greater integration. But this faith in the developed world, limned in the opening chapter, diminishes as the book progresses, till by the end, the author relies almost completely on developing countries—China, India, Brazil, Russia—to serve as the paladins of globalization. China plays the starring role, with the so-called Beijing Consensus ascendant over the moribund Washington Consensus of the 1990s. A large part of the book seeks to assert the primacy of China’s economic model while defending the country’s strain of authoritarianism. The book proves to be desultory—a history of trade agreements here, President Trump’s recent utterances on the subject there. A sound editorial process would have ensured greater discipline while also eliminating careless mistakes (Bretton Woods, which served as the location for the famous 1944 conference, is in New Hampshire, not Connecticut).
Review in May 2017 issue of Choice.
The European Union takes longer to respond to crises than other regional organizations. Why? Hardt argues that the delay is due to the EU’s formal institutional culture. The three other organizations considered—African Union, Organization of American States, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe—tend to foster interpersonal relations among their diplomats, thereby creating a more informal culture and speeding up decision making in times of crisis. The interests of the member states do matter, but the informal relations and favorable norms can moderate them when decisions must be arrived at quickly. Understanding an organization’s informal culture, however, is no easy task. Hardt relies on personal interviews of 50 ambassadors and diplomats (conducted in various capitals) and uses the resulting data to discern the importance of informal institutional factors in explaining variations in organizational efficiency (defined as speed of response). The findings described in the book challenge the realist view of international relations. Hardt makes the case that humans, even diplomats, are social creatures, and interpersonal dynamics, rather than national interest alone, can influence the timeliness of a multinational response to crisis.
Review in Feb. 2017 issue of CHOICE.
Charles Piot. Doing development in West Africa: a reader by and for undergraduates. Duke, 2016.
Growing numbers of undergraduate students from American and European universities are estivating in impoverished corners of the world. These summer stints are driven by a purpose: to undertake small-scale development projects in villages in Africa and Asia. Over the last eight years, small groups of students from Duke University have been visiting Togo in western Africa to engage in sundry projects dealing with health and youth culture—this book is about their experiences. Written by the students themselves, albeit anchored at each end by their supervising professor, the book includes personal reflections on life in Togo as well as details on their projects in the villages. Both sets of accounts are instructive, and provide a helpful guide to those who are contemplating spending their summers in similar fashion. The projects are varied, ranging from setting up a health insurance scheme to providing microfinance loans to teens to addressing the problem of youth migration. Not all the projects meet their original goals. Students are refreshingly candid about the nature and multitude of problems they faced, and the need to scale back their expectations. As Piot notes, development is hard work.
Review in Oct 2016 issue of CHOICE.
Buntaine, Mark. Giving aid effectively: the politics of environmental performance and selectivity at multilateral development banks. Oxford, 2016
Multilateral environmental conferences yield pledges of funds for developing countries tackling climate change. Instead of allocating scarce climate funds to achieve the greatest impact, meeting financing targets becomes the primary goal (one often unmet). Buntaine (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) uses such cases to illustrate the “approval imperative” that stems from the interests of donor countries, citizen groups, and international aid organizations. As a result, countries that receive aid are rarely under serious pressure to undertake needed reforms and in fact use the funds to reward favored political constituencies. To make aid more effective, Buntaine argues, projects should be chosen more selectively, which in turn requires altering the incentives of the various parties involved. International organizations such as the World Bank should institute systematic procedures to learn from past projects while streamlining the application process for recipient countries. The latter may also help stanch the loss of business to new rivals, although a disturbing consequence of the emergence of the Asian Infrastructure Bank, a multilateral institution set up by China in the face of disapproval by the US, may be attenuated environmental standards for infrastructure projects.
Review in July 2016 issue of CHOICE.
M. Ayhan Kose and Marco Terrones. Collapse and Revival: Understanding Global Recessions and Recoveries. International Monetary Fund, 2015.
Kose and Terrones, of the World Bank and IMF respectively, seek to describe what a global recession is, how it originates, and what policy makers can do about it. They hone in on four recent episodes—1975, 1982, 1991 and 2009—and illustrate the pattern of recovery that followed the economic collapse in each case. All four periods witnessed a sharp decline in global economic activity. World output per capita, industrial production, employment, and trade flows all fell. In each case, the ensuing recovery entailed rising consumption, investment and trade. The 2009 episode proved to be particularly obdurate, however: it was highly synchronized, with several countries enmeshed in recession simultaneously; the financial crisis that precipitated the collapse was exceptionally severe; sharp uncertainty stifled the nascent recovery; and developed-country governments adopted divergent fiscal and monetary policies. Policy makers are thus enjoined to ensure that they monitor financial stability closely, maintain adequate policy room for maneuver, and coordinate policies internationally during recessions. The book includes digital content on a DVD. Somewhat incongruously for a serious tome, it displays large icons for multimedia content throughout.
Review in April 2016 issue of CHOICE.
Radelet, Steven. The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World. Simon and Schuster, 2015.
Recent decades have witnessed dramatic improvements in the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people in the poorest countries on earth. A few countries such as the Asian tigers and Botswana led the way in the 1960s and 1970s. China’s own ascent began in the 1980s. But the really broad surge, encompassing dozens of low-income countries, began to occur in the mid-1990s, leading to sharp declines in poverty and significant gains in income, life expectancy and education across vast swathes of the developing world. Radelet identifies three major reasons for this. First, the end of the Cold War and fall of communism removed barriers to economic development. Second, integration into the global economy, by permitting easier movements of labor, capital and technology, vastly expanded markets for goods and services and brought life-saving medicines, improved seeds, and the benefits of the Internet revolution to all corners of the globe. And third, countries became more democratic, with leaders embracing institutions and policies that were more conducive to growth. Can these gains be sustained? Radelet is cautiously optimistic, citing the need for global leadership, with particular emphasis on the US-China relationship.
Review published in the September 2015 issue of CHOICE.
Jones, Kent. Reconstructing the World Trade Organization for the 21st century: an institutional approach. Oxford, 2015.
This title by Jones (Babson College) comes at a critical juncture. The Doha Round, the latest round of trade negotiations among World Trade Organization (WTO) members, was launched in 2001 and shows little signs of coming to a successful completion. Frustrated by the lack of progress, many countries are signing regional trade agreements involving fewer trading partners and less complexity. The WTO appears to be in danger of becoming irrelevant. Adopting an institutional approach, Jones describes the history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the predecessor to the WTO), its successes in the post–WW II era, the transition to the WTO, and the current predicament of the global trading regime. Despite the nature of the problems besetting the Doha Round, the author is surprisingly optimistic about prospects for the Geneva-based institution and proffers suggestions for getting the WTO back on track. Perhaps most important, Jones notes that gains from trade remain substantial, providing a latent impetus for liberalization. This is evident from the move toward regional trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership—a development the WTO needs to accommodate more coherently in its vision of an open world trading regime.
Review published in the March 2015 issue of CHOICE.
Trumbull, Gunnar. Consumer lending in France and America: credit and welfare. Cambridge, 2014.
In a relatively brief treatment, Trumbull (Harvard Business School) seeks to explain the difference in the evolution of consumer credit in the US and in France in the post-WW II era. At the beginning of the 20th century, consumers in the US and France were able to take out loans to finance household purchases. However, societal attitudes, based on fears of decline in morality and social order, were on the disapproving side. Those concerns have now evaporated: consumer lending is a largely respectable industry, and the activities of large banks and lenders are subject to government regulation. But attitudes toward consumer debt have diverged in the two countries, with American consumers being more willing to go deeper into debt. In his exploration of this divergence, Trumbull remains skeptical of the oft-cited link between consumerism and credit as well as the notion that credit expanded, especially to low-income groups, as the social safety net in the US began to fray in the 1980s. Instead, he traces the differences in outcomes to the emergence of different coalitions of social and political groups with varying degrees of acceptance of consumer credit.
Review in the February 2015 issue of CHOICE.
Ardalan, Kavous. Understanding globalization: a multi-dimensional approach. Transaction, 2014.
In this book, Ardalan (finance, Marist College) seeks to explain the phenomenon of globalization from diverse perspectives. Each of the first eight chapters deals with a particular dimension of globalization: world order, culture, the state, information technology, economics, production, development, and the Bretton Woods institutions. In each case, the link between globalization and the relevant issue is considered from four perspectives: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. Chapter 9 offers concluding remarks, stressing the need for researchers to grasp the different paradigms employed in the book. According to the author, the knowledge of paradigms increases awareness of the boundaries and limitations of each individual paradigm. That may be true, but the choice of the eight dimensions of globalization is somewhat arbitrary. Moreover, by subjecting each dimension to the four perspectives regarded as crucial, and without adducing any empirical evidence to evaluate their explanatory power, the book provides the impression that they are all equally valid. In fact, the author claims the explanations are equally meritorious. The book could also have gained from more careful editing. Each chapter includes an exhortation, repeated in almost identical language, to scholars to learn by listening to competing views.
Review appeared in the August 2014 issue of CHOICE.
Edward F. Fischer (ed.) Cash on the table: markets, values, and moral economies. SAR Press, 2014.
Economists and anthropologists do not talk to each other much, a lamentable omission that this volume seeks to correct. Fischer (anthropology, Vanderbilt Univ.) has compiled a multi-author volume of essays, conversations, and even illustrations dealing with markets and morality from diverse perspectives. He purports to build a more capacious understanding of society populated by individuals promoting a rational, coolly calculating self-interest while also advancing society’s more encompassing vision of a social good. Moral values inform economic behavior. The homo economicus creation so widely favored by economists in their models of individual optimization must, in the view of a large number of writers in this volume, be augmented by notions of sharing and reciprocity, quintessential features of society expatiated by anthropologists relying on ethnographic studies. Adam Smith gave society the invisible hand, certainly, but drawing on Rousseau, he also emphasized the centrality of moral sentiments, notably sympathy toward fellow human beings. Free markets may yield an efficient allocation of labor and capital, but problems remain: unequal income distribution, excessive pollution, and insufficient provision of public goods such as education. Recent developments in behavioral economics also point to shortcomings in traditional economic models. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.
Review appeared in the May 2014 issue of CHOICE.
Ramalingam, Ben. Aid on the edge of chaos: rethinking international cooperation in a complex world. Oxford, 2013.
This timely critique of aid is divided into three parts. The first describes the system of foreign aid, noting critically the shortcomings in the operations of aid agencies and their inability to provide satisfactory answers to questions about whether aid is effective and who gains from it. The second part of the book deals with the notion of complexity. Titled rather grandly “The Way the World Works,” this section presents chapters on findings from complexity research to illustrate several case studies. In the third and final part, Ramalingam (consultant in international development and humanitarian aid) explains how complexity could be employed to make aid more effective. He proposes several ideas. In the case of disaster relief, effective humanitarian response requires organizations to work together, to engage with affected populations, and to understand the importance of social networks (in many cases, the well connected get most of the relief). The idea of positive deviance is applied to tackling malnutrition: in a case study of Bangladesh, the wisdom of mothers living in impoverished conditions, rather than the expertise of individuals from think tanks and universities, proved effective. The examples presented in this work should prompt a reconsideration of how one thinks of foreign aid. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional audiences.
Review appeared in the August 2013 issue of CHOICE.
Rising tide: is growth in emerging economies good for the United States?, by Lawrence Edwards and Robert Z. Lawrence. Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2013.
In the US in recent decades, manufacturing employment has fallen, trade deficits with developing countries (especially China) have risen, and wage inequality has increased. Could these insalubrious developments have been caused by trade with developing countries? No, say Edwards (Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa) and Lawrence (Peterson Institute for International Economics) after reviewing the theoretical arguments and marshalling available evidence in this sober analytical volume. Most economists have long agreed that trade improves a country’s aggregate welfare, but recent articles by a handful of influential economists (e.g., Paul Samuelson, Larry Summers) have raised doubts about the desirability of free trade. Opinion polls show that the public too takes a rather dim view of trade, a view made even dimmer by the massive job losses incurred during the 2008-09 economic crisis. So this volume comes at an appropriate juncture, seeking to determine whether rich countries like the US still stand to benefit from trading with countries teeming with workers earning low wages but acquiring skills at a rapid pace. Relying on rigorous analysis, the authors conclude that such trade is still a good thing for the US. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional audiences.
Review appeared in the April 2013 issue of CHOICE.
Ott, Mack. Political economy of nation building: the world’s unfinished business. Transaction, 2012.
Ott (international economic consultant; former academician) offers a spirited defense of civil and political liberties, property rights, and wealth creation as a handmaiden for world peace. The first half of the book deals with the history of the development of the liberal nation-state and market economy. Ott describes the institutions underpinning the modern nation-state and where they originated (mostly in England); the growth of property rights necessary for the functioning of a market economy; the rise of literacy and civil society; the development of finance; and the quest for sustained economic growth and its relationship to income inequality. The sixth chapter provides a review of the success and failure of policies in selected less developed countries. Chapters in the second half of the book discuss policies to create the institutions necessary for nation building. The analysis revolves around the importance of good governance; the beneficial effects of privatization of state-owned enterprises; the costs and benefits of nurturing civil society; the role of salubrious fiscal and monetary policies; and the effects of income redistribution on economic growth. The epilogue includes a brief discussion of China, noting that the government may bend–gradually, to calls for greater democracy. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate students through faculty and researchers.
Review appeared in the August 2012 issue of CHOICE.
Lin, Justin Yifu. New structural economics: a framework for rethinking development and policy. World Bank, 2012.
Development thinking changed in the years following WW II. Early reliance on extensive government intervention, and import substitution in particular, proved misguided. A subsequent faith in market-oriented development–economic liberalization, privatization–also failed to deliver consistently rapid economic growth. Now, claims Lin (chief economist, World Bank), it is time for a “third wave” that accords well-functioning markets a central role in development while also requiring governments to correct failures of information and coordination. Low-income countries should develop industries that reflect comparative advantage, but the process needs to be abetted by suitable industrial policy and public provision of infrastructure. In a case study of Nigeria, Lin identifies the faster-growing countries worth emulating; the industries suited for targeted intervention by the government; and mechanisms for appropriate industrial policy. This approach, however, assumes that governments are able to identify and encourage, in a fast-changing world, industries possessing “latent” comparative advantage. The proposed framework would allow for gradual trade liberalization, with some import-competing sectors attracting temporary protection, but this minimizes the effect of political opposition to growing openness along with the possibility of corruption that government intervention almost invariably engenders. Summing Up: Recommended. Economic development collections, upper-division undergraduate through professional.
Review appeared in the May 2012 issue of CHOICE.
Yavlinsky, Grigory. Realeconomik: the hidden cause of the great recession (and how to avert the next one), tr. by Antonina W. Bouis. Yale, 2011.
Yavlinsky is an academic economist and politician (former Russian deputy prime minister) who was involved in 1990 with Russia’s transition to a market-oriented economy. As such, he is well poised to diagnose the ills of the current economic system and proffer nostrums to transform and rescue it. He undertakes this task with grandeur, even coining the term “realeconomik” to denote the unsavory application of realpolitik in the economic realm. His primary argument is that effective functioning of the capitalist system is founded on trust, which in turn rests on “public morality.” In the absence of ethical considerations, capitalism will degenerate, a denouement made all the more certain by technical innovations in finance that may improve efficiency but erode trust. Western political systems in the liberal intellectual tradition are also under threat, says Yavlinsky, largely due to “aggressive manipulation” of wants and preferences, a criticism that evokes John Kenneth Galbraith’s jeremiad against advertising in The Affluent Society (1958) and leaves the reader with an incomplete sense of the perniciousness of such attempts to shape social behavior. An appeal to ground financial regulations, and decision making at the IMF and World Bank, in morality appears to be inchoate and impractical. Summing Up: Optional. Upper-division undergraduate and professional collections.
Review appeared in the January 2012 issue of CHOICE.
Preferential trade agreement policies for development: a handbook, ed. by Jean-Pierre Chauffour and Jean-Christophe Maur. World Bank, 2011.
The Doha Round of the World Trade Organization was launched in 2001, but deep rifts among member countries have prevented a successful completion of the global trade agreement. In the meantime, efforts at regional integration, anchored by preferential trade agreements (PTAs) among groups of countries, have met with greater success. But modern PTAs go far beyond the market access aspect of previous regional trade agreements, and this handbook seeks to help policy makers understand the range of policy areas facing them. The 22 chapters are written by economists at the World Bank, universities, and trade-oriented organizations. They cover the policy dimensions associated with a panoply of PTA issues, including investment regimes, labor mobility, competition rules, agriculture policy, intellectual property rights, dispute settlement, and government procurement. Theoretical discussions of costs and benefits of PTAs are presented, but the principal contributions–listings of various regional agreements, their scope and provisions, the terms of coverage–are of a decidedly practical bent. Policy makers in developed and developing countries pondering what kind of regional arrangement works best for them will find this handbook to be a helpful guide. Advanced students of international trade will likewise find it a useful resource. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.
Review appeared in the September 2011 issue of CHOICE.
Kenny, Charles. Getting better: why global development is succeeding–and how we can improve the world even more. Basic Books, 2011.
Is life nasty, brutish, and short for the denizens of the developing world? Kenny answers no. Even the world’s most benighted parts, according to the author of this tremendously bracing book, fail to fit in with the Hobbesian notion of unremitting misery. Income growth may have stagnated over long periods in certain countries, especially in Africa, but that has not prevented those nations from exhibiting dramatic advances in literacy rates, life expectancy, and even political and civil rights. Kenny (World Bank) reviews the findings of the development literature and finds that traditional explanations of growth–accumulation of physical and human capital, good governance, strong institutions, salubrious macroeconomic environment, and foreign aid–all may have a role to play. However, the principal reasons for the vast improvements in the standards of living in the 20th century are the spread of technology and diffusion of ideas. The cost of providing a good quality of life, argues Kenny persuasively, is low and falling, which enables even countries where per-capita incomes have fallen (e.g., Haiti, Central African Republic, and Niger) to experience remarkable gains in adult literacy, declines in infant mortality, and increased longevity. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels.
Choice Vol. 48, Issue 9, May 2011.
Suranovic (George Washington Univ.) argues that when it comes to crafting economic policy on globalization, reliance on economic theory, empirical data, notions of fairness, and democratic processes can fail us. This is not to suggest that they do not have anything to offer–far from it. Consider the consequences of imposing tariffs on imports of a good. Trade theories distinguish between winners and losers among consumers and producers; empirical models assign magnitudes to gains and losses; notions of fairness allow one to think about what society might find acceptable; and democratic processes can reveal the citizenry’s preferences for particular policies. But according to Suranovic, each has its failings, so that in the final analysis, there are no clear choices for the policy maker. The author proposes a new way of looking at international trade policy. He develops a set of principles that is embedded in notions of involuntary and voluntary transfers, and he argues that policies should seek to promote free trade of goods and inputs, deracinate corruption, and provide a limited safety net to the least well-off. Whether these policies are viewed as a “compromise” by critics of globalization remains to be seen. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.
Choice Vol. 47, Issue 12, Aug 2010.
Some developing countries grow faster than others. Why? And why have middle-income countries (with the exception of a few Asian countries) been unable to achieve faster growth rates than rich countries in recent years? These are the questions addressed by Pereira (Developing Brazil, CH, Sep’09, 47-0383; Democracy and Public Management, CH, Jan’06, 43-3023). Proponents of neoclassical development theories argue that insipid growth is a result of insufficient reliance on the private sector. The heavy hand of the government, in this view, constricts entrepreneurs, protects inefficient domestic industries from foreign competition, and stifles private economic activity at the expense of lumbering and corrupt state-directed enterprise. Such thinking reached its apotheosis with the dominance of the Washington Consensus in the1990s. But recent events (including the global financial crisis of 2008-09), argues the author, have exposed the tenuous foundations of the Consensus, indeed of the neoclassical orthodoxy taught in graduate economics programs. Instead, Pereira notes, the laggard growth of several emerging countries is the result of two causes: the lack of a national development strategy (that relies less on industrial policy and more on austere fiscal policy) and an errant macroeconomic policy characterized principally by an overvalued exchange rate. Summing Up: Recommended. Economic development collections, upper-division undergraduate and up.
Choice Vol. 47, Issue 9, May 2010 .
Jones, Kent. The Doha blues: institutional crisis and reform in the WTO. Oxford, 2009.
The Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) drags on. Begun in 2001 (in Qatar, partly to escape the anti-trade demonstrators who had disrupted the 1999 Seattle meetings), the trade talks have an explicit development agenda; despite enduring several “ministerial conferences” over the last eight years, they remain unfinished. In fact, negotiations were briefly suspended in 2006. A “July 2008 package” promised a swift conclusion, but several issues remain unsettled, and even Pascal Lamy, the director-general, is uncertain whether concluding the Doha Round in 2010 is “doable.” Jones (Babson College) argues that the WTO is facing the “inevitable institutional problems of an organization buffeted by a growing and changing global economy” and suggests reforms to address these problems. He notes that countries keep returning to the negotiating table because of anticipated gains from freer trade. But reaching an agreement in the Doha Round will require developed and developing countries (which are normally, though not always, pitted against each other) to settle contentious issues, especially in agriculture and trade in services. This volume provides a rigorous analysis of the institutional aspects involved and concludes with the hope that a “modest” agreement is possible. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional audiences.
Choice Vol. 47, Issue 7, Mar 2010.
Siebert, Horst. Rules for the global economy. Princeton, 2009.
Siebert (Johns Hopkins University’s SAIS Bologna Center, Italy) addresses how institutional arrangements (“rules”) arise as mechanisms to deal with global economic issues. Rules require nations to relinquish part of their sovereignty, and he asks why countries would agree to such arrangements and whether indeed they lead to improvements in welfare. Siebert begins with the premise that rules serve to reduce transaction costs. In some cases, the benefits to countries are direct and visible; in others, as in the case of environmental protection, the benefits are less certain while the costs are immediate and visible. The author considers a wide range of institutional arrangements, e.g., antitrust policy, most favored nation clause, international capital flows, and the Kyoto Protocol. In a chapter on financial instability, he assesses the nature and extent of regulations needed to avert crises. The eruption of economic crises, including in particular that of 2008-09, does not attenuate the fundamental proposition that countries will agree to abide by the constraints imposed by multilateral institutions only if they expect to gain from them. Siebert concludes with a treatment of the issues likely to strain the rules system: international migration, terrorism, and energy scarcity. A useful contribution to the international economics literature. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through faculty collections.
Choice Vol. 46, Issue 10, June 2009.
In elegant yet succinct prose, Yusuf (World Bank) traces the arc of development thinking since WW II. He moves quickly through the 1950s and 1960s, a “golden” age that ended with the pernicious stagflation of the 1970s. The first World Development Report (WDR) emerged in this era of “despondency” (in 1978). With successive issues, it quickly established itself as a repository of contemporary development wisdom, a valuable source of data on the state of the global economy, and a guide for policy makers in developing countries. The focus of the WDRs has changed over time, reflecting altered thinking in the development field and in the World Bank, the influence of donor countries, and the ambitions and goals of Bank presidents. This volume includes detailed commentaries by Joseph Stiglitz, William Easterly, and other noted development economists, who provide their own keen–and occasionally contrarian–analyses of the history and relevance of the WDRs. The development agenda remains unfinished, and despite some misgivings about the nature of problems facing the World Bank, Yusuf asserts that future issues of the WDR will continue to exert influence among policy makers. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.
Choice Vol. 46, Issue 7, Mar 2009 .
The book arrives at a particularly fitting time. The dramatic crisis in the world’s financial markets, coupled with a jarring slowdown in the global economy, have led to renewed thinking on the efficacy of free markets–and the government’s proper role in economic affairs. Broad (American Univ.) and Cavanagh (Institute for Policy Studies) lead the charge on market “fundamentalism”: excessive reliance on the private sector and globalization, they aver, has severely retarded development in low-income countries. The book’s first six chapters trace the rise and fall of the Washington Consensus, the seventh describes attempts to revive its tenets, and the final chapter provides a new “lens” on development. Multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank come in for heavy criticism. In a surprising omission, the authors fail to adequately address one of the most significant examples of poverty reduction in modern history–the declines in poverty in China and India in the last two decades. Also, it is not clear that the alternatives they propose, e.g., an “inward-looking strategy that stresses reliance at the grassroots,” will deliver that kind of result for the legions of poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Nevertheless, a timely, thought-provoking work. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers.
Choice Vol. 46, Issue 2, Oct 2008.
In his latest volume, Maddison (emer., Univ. of Groningen, the Netherlands), whose works include The World Economy: Historical Statistics (CH, Apr’04, 41-4407) and Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run (2nd ed., CH, Jul’08, 45-6299), continues to address a fundamental question in economics: why do some countries grow faster than others? The scope of the book is sweeping and ambitious. In part 1, Maddison seeks to explain differences in the growth in per capita incomes in different regions from the time of the Roman Empire to 2003. He reports that in 1300, China enjoyed the world’s highest per capita income, but two centuries later relinquished the lead to western Europe. In part 2, he discusses the use of macroeconomic measurement in economic history. Despite his desire for greater “quantification,” Maddison is quick to acknowledge the perils of ignoring institutions and traditions. In part 3 he concludes with projections for the world economy in 2030, also a perilous undertaking. He assumes per capita incomes in China and India will grow at 4.5 percent annually between 2003 and 2030, making these two economies the largest and third largest respectively by 2030. The second largest? The US. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; academic audiences, lower-division undergraduate and up; professionals.
Choice Vol. 45, Issue 9, May 2008.
Dehesa (chair, Center for Economic Policy Research) seeks to provide a balanced view of globalization and its effects on poverty and income inequality. Chapters draw heavily on the academic literature dealing with gains and losses to countries from increased integration of the global economy. The volume’s 11 essays provide (occasionally) contrasting views from articles published in leading economics journals, although Dehesa is careful to keep the technical material to a minimum. In some ways, the book offers an extended literature review of the subject. This approach, supplemented generously by the author’s own careful analysis, makes the essays both substantial and accessible to a wider audience. While focusing broadly on income inequality, Dehesa addresses the impact of technical progress, the importance of institutions, market access for developing countries, the role of foreign direct investment, effectiveness of foreign aid, and prospects for increased migration and labor remittances. He also discusses the Doha Round of the WTO talks and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. See related: Raphael Kaplinsky’s Globalization, Poverty and Inequality (CH, Jun’06, 43-6004) and Joseph Stiglitz’s Making Globalization Work (CH, Feb’07, 44-3398). Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; students, lower-division undergraduate and up; and faculty/researchers.
Choice Vol. 45, Issue 6, Feb 2008.
The World Bank: development, poverty, hegemony, ed. by David Moore. KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.
Anyone looking for a balanced treatment of the World Bank will not find it here. Moore (Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) makes his objective quite clear in the introduction: “… to expose the deceptions, hubris, and plain ‘bad sense’ … of the World Bank’s organic intellectuals.” Accordingly he has assembled a collection of 16 essays taking issue with, among other things, the Bank’s excessive reliance on “neoliberal policies,” its attempt to engender “capitalist economic transformation in the Third World,” its reluctance to eschew structural adjustment policies in the face of failure, its subservience to US interests, even its commitment to fight poverty. Some essays are dated (a few have been published in the 1990s), and the extent of revision for this volume is not clear. The allusion to the two “wolves”–recent Bank presidents James Wolfensohn and Paul Wolfowitz–is unfortunate. The volume’s contributors include faculty in development studies, international politics, geography, and philosophy; the interdisciplinary approach of the book is perhaps its strongest point. For a more balanced account see Ngaire Woods’s The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers (CH, Nov’06, 44-1651). Summing Up: Optional. Comprehensive collections only.
Choice Vol. 45, Issue 4, Dec 2007.
Kerr (Univ. of Saskatchewan, Canada) and Gaisford (Univ. of Calgary, Canada) have assembled a collection of 48 essays by academics, doctoral students, and researchers describing various aspects of trade policy. The volume includes seven sections covering the history of trade policy, trade agreements, policy instruments, contingency and safeguard measures, coordination of trade policy and domestic policy, the link between trade policy and development, and enforcement issues. The essays are not meant to be literature surveys, nor do they rely on any advanced mathematical treatment, although graphs are employed in some cases. The editors’ objective, as they readily stated, is to analyze trade policy issues for the benefit of a “broad policy audience” with an “introductory knowledge of economics.” The editors are largely successful in meeting this goal, although some of the graphical analyses may test the boundaries of economics principles. On the whole, however, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of the conduct and instruments of trade policy, as well as the political, environmental, and ethical issues involved in contemporary trade policy. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections.
The Moving Hand Writes 