Growth and Policy in Developing Countries: A Structuralist Approach

Economic structuralists use a broad, systemwide approach to understanding development, and this textbook assumes a structuralist perspective in its investigation of why a host of developing countries have failed to grow at 2 percent or more since 1960. Sensitive to the wide range of factors that affect an economy’s strength and stability, the authors identify the problems that have long frustrated growth in many parts of the developing world while suggesting new strategies and policies to help improve standards of living.

After a survey of structuralist methods and post-World War II trends of global economic growth, the authors discuss the role that patterns in productivity, production structures, and capital accumulation play in the growth dynamics of developing countries. Next, it outlines the evolution of trade patterns and the effect of the terms of trade on economic performance, especially for countries that depend on commodity exports.

The authors acknowledge the structural limits of macroeconomic policy, highlighting the negative effects of financial volatility and certain financial structures while recommending policies to better manage external shocks. These policies are then further developed through a discussion of growth and structural improvements, and are evaluated according to which policy options-macro, industrial, or commercial—best fit within different kinds of developing economies.

This analysis, diagnosis, and prescription, embedded in the structuralist tradition of economic thought, is refreshingly different.

– Deepak Nayyar
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and the New School University, New York

Growth and Policy in Developing Countries fills a gap in the existing literature on development economics and growth theory. The volume makes an original contribution from an unorthodox perspective.

– Nora Lustig
George Washington University

About the Authors

José Antonio Ocampo
Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University and former Minister of Finance of Colombia
Columbia University

Jose Antonio Ocampo is a Professor of Professional Practice in the School of International and Public Affairs and former Minister of Finance of Colombia. He is also a Fellow of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Prior to his appointment at Columbia, Professor Ocampo served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, and head of UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), as Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and has held a number of high-level posts in the Government of Colombia, including Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Director of the National Planning Department, and Minister of Agriculture . Professor Ocampo is author or editor of over 30 books and has published over 200 scholarly articles on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic development, international trade, and Colombian and Latin American economic history.

Lance Taylor
Professor, International Cooperation and Development
The New School

Lance Taylor is the Arnhold Professor of International Cooperation and Development at the New School University. He has taught at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Minnesota, and the Stockholm School of Economics. He has written extensively on structuralist macroeconomics, including his textbook Reconstructing Macroeconomics: Structuralist Proposals and Critiques of the Mainstream.

Codrina Rada
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
University of Utah

Codrinda Rada is assistant professor of economics at the University of Utah and a former economic affairs officer at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Her paper “Stagnation or Transformation of a Dual Economy Through Endogenous Productivity Growth?” is used as a basic tool of analysis in this book.