This book analyzes the Philippine economy from the 1960s to the 1980s. During this period, the benefits of economic growth conspicuously failed to 'trickle down'. Despite rising per capita income, broad sectors of the Filipino population experienced deepening poverty. Tracing this outcome to the country's economic and political structure, Professor Boyce focuses upon three central elements of the government's development strategy: the 'green revolution' in rice agriculture; the primacy accorded to export agriculture and forestry; and massive external borrowing.

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.