Nature and Scope of the Text

This book is about the economics of developing Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, whose peoples include impoverished peasants and slum dwellers, factory workers, small farmers, landlords, businesspeople, managers, technicians, government officials, and political elites. The economics of development also includes lessons from the past economic growth of today's industrialized countries and middle-income economies. It is suitable for students who have taken principles of economics.

The book differs from other development textbooks:

1. Unlike most texts, it discusses why modern economic growth originated in the West; gives reasons for Japanese growth (before its hiatus in the 1990s); and explains different growth rates among developing countries, including the success of the newly industrialized countries – especially Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia (despite the Asian crisis of the late 1990s).

2. The book illustrates concepts from all major third-world regions (Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe), with discussion of Asia's recent growth acceleration, Latin America's slowing growth, sub-Saharan Africa's food and economic crisis, and how developing regions have been affected by a globalized economy.

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