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Thirty percent of foreign development aid is channeled through NGOs or community-based organizations to improve service delivery to the poor, build social capital, and establish democracy in developing nations. However, growing evidence suggests that aid often erodes, rather than promotes, cooperation within developing nations. This book presents a rare, micro level account of the complex decision-making processes that bring individuals together to form collective-action platforms. It then examines why aid often breaks down the very institutions for collective action that it aims to promote. The book identifies concrete measures to check the erosion of cooperation in foreign aid scenarios. Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of international development aid, and therefore the empirical details presented are particularly relevant for policy. The book's argument is equally applicable to a number of other developing countries, and has important implications for recent discussions within the field of economics.

This book starts from the observation that the rise of China, India and other newly industrializing countries constitutes a triumph of industrialization in that it is lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. At the same time it confronts the “inconvenient truth” that the model of industrialization utilized so far, based on fossil fuels and extensive resource throughput, cannot scale to accommodate the needs of billions more people. Since it is unthinkable that China et al should be told that they are not allowed to grow their way out of poverty, the only solution lies in finding a new development model. This book argues that such a model is indeed being pursued – a “green growth” model – and that the principal exponent of such a transformation is China itself. It argues that the transformation is occurring not just at the level of macro policies but fundamentally at the level of new energy systems, new resource circulating systems, and new systems of eco-finance channeling investment in these new directions. Against those who hold that carbon taxes and carbon markets should be allowed to lead this transition, the book points to the efficacy of China’s approach in utilizing strong state interventions to guide the system onto a new, renewable (green) trajectory, even as it grows the coal-fired (black) trajectory as well. The book is neither optimistic nor pessimistic but realist in its evaluation of the forces unleashed, constituting a vast uncontrolled experiment whose outcome is anything but determined.

This book provides an in-depth economic and policy analysis of Hispanic entrepreneurs in the first decade of the 2000s. This book captures a flavor of issues related to the business cycle, economic outcomes (such as employment, sales, and contributions to tax coffers), socio-demographic characteristics, access to financial capital, the use and importance of digital technology, and public procurement and other policies affecting Hispanic business owners in the early 2000s. One distinguishing feature of this book is that it provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of many of these issues for specific Hispanic populations, such as men versus women, immigrants versus natives, and across Hispanic sub-groups (Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Salvadorans). The first decade of the 2000s witnessed the dramatic growth in the Hispanic population and the intensification of their entrepreneurial tendencies. If these demographic changes continue as the 2000s unfold, Hispanic entrepreneurship will become an increasingly vital component of American job creation and to the economic direction of the nation.

Recently, a growing body of work on “law and finance” and “legal origins” has highlighted the role of formal legal institutions in shaping financial institutions. However, these writings have focused largely on Europe, neglecting important non-Western traditions that prevail in a large part of the world. This book brings together a group of leading scholars from economics, economic history, law, and area studies to develop a unique, global and, long-term perspective on the linkage between law and economic change. Covering the regions of Western Europe, East and South Asia, and the Middle East, the chapters explore major themes regarding the nature and evolution of different legal regimes; their relationship with the state or organized religion; the definition and interpretation of ownership and property rights; the functioning of courts, and other mechanisms for dispute resolution and contract enforcement; and the complex dynamics of legal transplantations through processes such as colonization. The text makes clear that the development of legal traditions and institutions—as embodiments of cultural values and norms—exerts a strong effect on long-term economic change. And it demonstrates that a good understanding of legal origins around the world enriches any debate about Great Divergence in the early modern era, as well as development and underdevelopment in 19th–20th-century Eurasia.

This book examines technological advance and market regulation in the health industries of nations such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, and China. Pharmaceutical and life science industries can reinforce economic development and industry growth, but not necessarily positive health outcomes. Yet well-crafted industrial and health policies can strengthen each other and reconcile economic and social goals. This book advocates moving beyond traditional market failure to bring together three uncommonly paired themes: the growth of industrial capabilities, the politics of health access, and the geography of production and redistribution.

Why do some societies achieve high standards of living, relatively broad access to education and quality health care, serviceable infrastructure, predictable and largely impersonal legal procedures, and relatively accessible avenues to peaceful political expression, while others stagnate with guarded islands of extravagant wealth, surrounded by oceans of poverty, corrupt autocratic systems, and simmering conflicts—or even full-blown civil wars? Why, did South Korea, a dictatorship that faced devastating war from 1950-1954, and whose 1960 GDP per capita was half that of Mexico and twice that of India, have, by 2015, a per capita GDP that exceeded Mexico’s by a factor of three and India’s by a factor of 17—in addition to a largely peaceful transition to democracy? How might a society, trapped in stagnation, corruption, and repression, initiate and sustain processes of economic and political development?

The environmental justice literature convincingly shows that poor people and minorities live in more polluted neighborhoods than do other groups. These findings have sparked a broad activist movement, numerous local lawsuits, and several federal policy reforms. Despite the importance of environmental justice, the topic has received little attention from economists. And yet, economists have much to contribute, as several explanations for the correlation between pollution and marginalized citizens rely on market mechanisms. Understanding the role of these mechanisms is crucial to designing policy remedies, for each lends itself to a different interpretation to the locus of injustices. Moreover, the different mechanisms have varied implications for the efficacy of policy responses—and who gains and loses from them. This book further evaluates why underprivileged citizens are overexposed to toxic environments and what policy can do to help.