Does decentralization work in practice? Does it strengthen local level democracy and economic development? This book examines these questions by analyzing the experience of seven medium sized cities in Colombia and Chile. The authors draw on extensive fieldwork involving numerous interviews with actors at all levels and from all sectors. The result is a unique test, at the local level in Latin America, of the outcome of reforms to the institutional structure of government.

This is the new edition of the highly acclaimed Latin America in the 1930s, a text which has proved invaluable for teachers, researchers and students alike. The second edition has been revised and updated, including a new preface and updated statistical material, to form the second volume in the Economic History of Twentieth-Century Latin America . This book confronts the puzzle of Latin America's rapid recovery from the collapse in world markets and capital flows in the late 1920s. It shows how far the safety valves which made recovery possible in the 1930s were not available fifty years...

In the 1990s, 'protection', 'import substitution' and 'intervention' have become dirty words, part of the 'leyenda negra' of Latin America development in the postwar period. This book attempts a fresh look at the controversial years between the end of the Second World War and the point when, at varying dates in different countries, a discontinuity occurs in which the postwar 'style of development' ceased to play a central role in the economic evolution of the region. The analysis is based on seven case studies covering eleven countries.

This book explores the impact on Latin America of the extraordinary transformation of the international economy that took place in the half century or so that preceded the world depression of the 1930s. The authors show how the response varied in terms of both growth and distribution, shaped by varying preconditions, and by natural resources and geography. The interplay of economic developments with political and social structures had profound and varied effects on policy-making and on institutions that were of great significance for later decades.

Why it is so difficult for liberal economic ideas to become generally accepted (that is socially 'embedded') in industrialising countries despite the universal support for liberal political ideas and a single global market system? Drawing on the results of a sustained and collaborative interdisciplinary research project, international scholars provide a perspective on previous shifts towards (and away from) economic liberalism within Latin America, on the interaction of internal and external drivers in this process, and on the international context of the evolution of economic ideas.

Today Peru is undoubtedly poorer than Colombia. Yet at the turn of the century the opposite was true. This study asks why Peru has made relatively so much less progress, and finds part of the answer in the greater coherence and competence of short term policy management in Colombia. Whether the international economy has provided positive or negative shocks, Colombia has tended to manage them more skilfully than Peru - not be relying on the market but by generally pragmatic and prudent interventionist policies.

Some groups function well, from the perspectives of equity, efficiency, and well-being, while others do not. This book explores why. It covers groups that perform three types of function: overcoming market failures (e.g. producer organizations); improving the position of their members (e.g. Trade Unions), and distributing resources to the less well-off (e.g. NGOs and the public sector). It contrasts three modes of group behaviour: power and control; cooperation; and the use of material incentives. It explores what determines modes of behaviour of groups, and the consequences for efficiency,...

International experts evaluate new policy directions in economic development and poverty reduction, building on the ideas of a pioneer in the new discipline of Development Studies, Frances Stewart. Combing ideas and evidence on technological change, human development and conflict prevention to address the issue of the persistence of inequality

The authors explain why the discovery and development of natural resources is commonly associated with unstable and unequal development, and frequently with violence. They demonstrate the need for policies and institutions by reflecting on both successes and failures in case studies on Botswana, Nigeria and Niger as well as Bolivia, Chile and Peru.