Customer Reviews

Development Economics

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This textbook was written for senior undergraduates or master's students with a minimum introduction to economics, which assumes that the student has assimilated the general features of the approach defining economics as a social science. Consequently, any student or reader who is well grounded in the social science paradigm will readily assimilate this excellent introduction to development economics, which is distinguished by the solid, I would even say, jam-packed expertise of Debraj Ray.

The author gives an excellent overview in the four-page preface, where he acknowledges the limitations of his work and prepares the reader well by conveying a transparent framework for absorbing the rather dense exposition that follows.

There is in the second chapter a concise discussion of the meaning of economic development, which defines it as a multifaceted concept for which per capita income is a robust but significantly incomplete operational measure.

Throughout the book, the basic pattern of discussion is consistent. The author discusses theory and data in dynamic--the order of the two is interchangeable--identifying and discriminating what is substantiated, imperfect, or defective in theory, as well as what is informative, unexplained, or wanting in data, and then whenever possible drawing implications or conclusions for economic policy. The ultimate goal of author's analysis is to limn the "structural characteristics" of economic development, building upon the fundamental assumption that the key determinants of economic performance are a cohort of salient variables that affect the efficient functioning of markets.

Some of the variables that are intensively discussed include inequality, poverty, population growth, rural-urban sector interaction, the functioning of land, labor, capital, credit, and insurance markets, and trade policy. Not all factors that affect economic development are adequately quantified, such as social norms or the status quo. Interestingly, the author accounts rather well for the "East Asian miracle" in terms of some of these variables.

The two appendices at the end cover game theory and elementary statistical methods, both essential for the scientific understanding of economic development.

Designed for an introductory course, the textbook is of course weakly regardful of new ideas or studies, so that it will not bring the reader to any eager appreciation of exciting issues in the discipline--or maybe economics inherently IS a dismal science?

From the standpoint of social science, the textbook is surpassingly descriptive and analytical but to only a limited extent prescriptive. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to substantively understand economic development in an analytical and scientific mode.

Ray wrote this book with the objective of being one of the classical text books for Development Economics. And he did it. This book is used in LSE, Ivy League, and Oxford. It requires a strong microeconomic background, as well as econometric skills. There aren't a lot of formulas but theory. Easy reading and broad contents.

This is what I had to wait a long time for back in my days as an academic -- an UNDERGRADUATE textbook on Development Economics that is aimed squarely at economists. Most other textbooks on the subject are aimed at students with a general interest in development. While this makes them more accessible, they suffer from not seeing how useful a tool mainstream economic theory is when it comes to examining development issues. Importantly, Ray uses the analytical tools of economics without being too mathematical. This is the textbook I had my undergraduate students buy.

For graduate students it's an excellent 'background' text, but not sufficiently advanced enough to serve as a core text to supplement journal articles.

Very useful and interesting book about the basics oc development economics.
Well written and easy to understand also by non mother-tongue people.
I vividly recommend it!

For quite some time, I have been looking for a good text book in Development Economics. My serach more or less ends with Ray's excellently produced, "Development Economics". The best parts of the book are Chapters 2, 3, 4 and the two appendices. However there are some notable omissions in the book. It does not have chapters on "Industrialisation" and on "Financial Flows". But I am sure this can be "rectified" in the next edition. The book is eminently accessible to a graduate student in Economics in a typical developing country.

I received this book quickly. This book is clean. There are some highlights. So I like this more. I am satisfied.

A well written book and offer great insight into the world of developmental economics. At times some concepts are difficult to understand, but ultimately, after review, the concepts are understood. Overall a good book for an introductory course to developmental economics.

I used this textbook for an introductory Development Economics class and thought it was very good. Economics textbooks generally seem to focus on teaching lots of methods and models, which are susbquently supposed to be used to solve highly idealised problems. This in itself is not bad (and probably it is neccesary to some extent), but this is not nearly enough.

The good thing about this book is that it always cares more about the subject matter and less about models *for their own sake.* The book always discusses different models and then afterwards evaluates the model and sees how it matches up to empirical evidence (its remarkable how most textbooks don't do this). In this way, one gains a good, overall understanding of the issues being discussed rather than just learning some facts about which model predicts what. Since the subject matter itself is interesting (at least in my opinion), a book written in this way is naturally interesting and absorbing.

On the negative side, some of the chapters seem to be unneccesarily long (especially the part on credit markets). This is not a big problem though. More on the enviornment, corruption, etc... would also be very nice. I also think that more information on the historical experiences of countries (when it is related to the topic at hand, of course) would be very interesting and helpful.

Overall, I think this is a very good book for anyone who wants to learn about development, poverty, and related issues from an economic perspective.

With Debraj Ray's book, the study of Development Economics finally becomes more accessible to all those interested. It is written for the undergraduate level and is accessible to non-economists as well. The book is a formalisation of the theories on growth and development that have been published until now and gives a very good overview of the subject.

Two things, however are to criticise. First of all, it is a magnum opus that would be a lot more comfortable to read as a paperback. Second, the information presented in this book is huge, yet doesn't go into sufficient and into equal detail for all factors of growth that are presented in this book. In other words, the presentation of the different factors is at a rather general level, however some factors seem to stand out more than others, which is somewhat a little annoying, since growth depends on many factors, some of which are too narrowly described.

The style however is straight-forward and is not limited to economists alone. At the same time, a good understanding of both macro- and microeconomics (in particular) will be useful. The book should also ideally be read together with some further readings so that the reader fully understands the contents and the points that the author is stressing. Yet, it is a fabulous book that can serve as an ideal starting-step for further study in the area. Four points are therefore awarded for this book.

In view that there are extended critics that already say what I feel about this book, I just qualify it: Outstanding, superb! I strongly recommend it!