Economic Development Books
| The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet (2007) A guide to how human well-being has steadily improved with economic growth, technological change, and free trade combining to power a "cycle of progress" that has led to unprecedented improvements in human well-being. |
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| Economic Freedom of the World: 2006 Annual Report (2006) In new research published in this year's report, economist William Easterly of New York University compares the impact of economic freedom and foreign aid on economic growth in the poorest nations. Demonstrating that foreign aid has no positive impact on economic growth in the poorest nations, Easterly's research shows that economic freedom has a positive impact on prosperity and helping lift nations out of poverty. |
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| Economic Freedom of the World: 2005 Annual Report (2005) Economic Freedom of the World measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom. The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of privately owned property. The first Economic Freedom of the World Report, published in 1996, was the result of a decade of research by a team which included several Nobel Laureates and over 60 other leading scholars in a broad range of fields, from economics to political science, and from law to philosophy. This is the 9th edition of Economic Freedom of the World and this year's publication ranks 127 nations for 2003, the most recent year for which data are available. |
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| Water for Sale (2005) More than a billion people worldwide lack access to clean, safe water. Some 12 million people die annually as a result, and millions more are struck by diseases associated with the lack of sanitary water. Those afflicted live mainly in poor countries where water distribution is run by inefficient public providers. Water for Sale presents compelling evidence that moving the control of water distribution into the hands of private enterprises will enable more people to have access to clean and safe water. |
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| Economic Freedom of the World: 2004 Annual Report (2004) Economic freedom is strongly related to prosperity and growth. New research in the 2004 report finds that economically free nations attract nearly $11,000 of investment per worker, 12 times more than the $847 investment per worker in unfree economies. Moreover, economic freedom benefits the lives of all people including the poor. In nations in the top fifth of economic freedom, the average income of the poorest 10 percent of the population was $6,877 compared to just $823 in the least free nations. |
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| Just Get Out of the Way: How Government Can Help Business in Poor Countries (2004) International institutions such as the World Bank recommend sophisticated policies to improve the business environment that governments in poor countries cannot successfully implement. In this book, Robert E. Anderson, a development consultant and former World Bank economist, recommends a different approach. Instead of adopting policies that are common in rich countries, Anderson suggests that policymakers take into account the institutional weaknesses typical of developing countries -- corruption, deficient rule of law, cronyism, and so on. Simpler, market-oriented policies are more likely to produce growth and keep the private and public sectors honest. |
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| In Defense of Global Capitalism (2003) A young writer from Sweden, who started on the anarchist left, Johan Norberg has traveled to Vietnam, Africa, and other hot spots in the battle over globalization. With facts, statistics, and graphs, Norberg shows why capitalism is in the process of creating a better world. Norberg takes on the tough issues-economic growth, freedom vs. equality, free trade and fair trade, international debt, child labor, cultural imperialism-and concludes that free-market capitalism is the best route out of global poverty. |
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| Economic Freedom of the World: 2003 Annual Report (2003) The Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute, together with 50 think tanks around the world, present the 2003 edition of the Economic Freedom of the World report, which ranks 123 nations based on 38 separate criteria. |
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| Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington's Futile War on Drugs in Latin America (2003) The war on drugs has received considerable criticism over the years. Until recently, however, most critics have not stressed the damage that the international phase of the drug war has done to our Latin American neighbors. In this hard-hitting book, Ted Galen Carpenter takes a broad view of the fiasco that is Washington's drug war and provides a candid portrait of the situation in Latin America. Bad Neighbor Policy is a must-read for anyone interested in the real story behind our relationship with the countries south of the border. |
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| Economic Freedom of the World: 2002 Annual Report (2002) The 2002 report, which is based on data from 2000, lists Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world, followed closely by Singapore and the United States. The United Kingdom, Switzerland and New Zealand round out the top five. This edition of Economic Freedom of the World also includes a preface by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and is authored by James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, with Chris Edwards, Walter Park, Veronique de Rugy and Smita Wagh. |
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| Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism (2001) Mixing historical narrative, thought-provoking arguments, and on-the-scene reporting and interviews, Brink Lindsey, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies shows how the world economy has grown up amidst the wreckage of the old regime -- detailing how that wreckage constrains the present and obscures the future. He conveys a clearer picture of globalization's current state than the current conventional wisdom, providing a framework for anticipating the future direction of the world economy. |
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| Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization (2001) Swedish Journalist Tomas Larsson takes the reader on a fast-paced, worldwide journey from the slums of Rio to the brothels of Bangkok in this book that shows how access to global markets helps struggling entrepreneurs get ahead. Larsson offers real examples of real people thriving in their communities thanks to the benefits of international markets. |
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| Economic Freedom of the World: 2001 Annual Report (2001) The Economic Freedom of the World Report is an annual project started with the help of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. The report uses 21 objective criteria to produce an economic freedom index of the world, published by the Cato Institute, Canada's Fraser Institute and institutes from 50 other countries. In this year's report, Hong Kong is still the world's freest economy, with Singapore coming a close second. But the United States has dropped from fourth to fifth position, according to the study, which is a comprehensive rating of 123 of the world's economies. |
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| China's Future: Constructive Partner or Emerging Threat? (2000) Is China a rising colossus that intends to bully its neighbors and dominate Asia? Or is China a country that has already moved far along the road to a market economy and a more open society and is committed to being a stabilizing, cooperative power? The distinguished contributors to this book examine those questions and their implications for U.S. policy. They also consider the prospects for the evolution of a peaceful and prosperous "new China," given the background of 50 years of communist rule. Whether China's future is as a constructive partner or as an emerging threat ultimately will depend, says Liu Junning in his chapter, "On the Fate of Liberalism." |
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| From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays (2000) Peter Bauer-professor emeritus of economics at the London School of Economics and the first winner of the Milton Fridman Prize for Advancing Liberty-challenges standard explanations of Third World poverty, including colonialism, lack of capital, and population growth. Bauer is skeptical of the benefits of foreign aid, which, he writes, "is demonstrably neither necessary nor sufficient to promote economic progress in the so-called Third World and is indeed much more likely to inhibit economic advance than it is to promote it." |
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| Global Fortune: The Stumble and Rise of World Capitalism (2000) After two world wars, the Great depression, and various experiments with socialism that interrupted the liberal economic order that began in the 19th century, the world economy recently returned to the level of globalization that it previously enjoyed. Yet that return has been accompanied by financial turmoil in Asia and elsewhere, prompting critics to incorrectly fault markets for spreading instability and poverty. Contributors to this volume include development economist Deepak Lal; Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa; Andrei Illarionov, Russian president Vladimir Putin's chief economic advisor; IMF executive director Onno de Beaufort Wijnholds; and economist Rudiger Dornbusch. |
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China in the New Millennium: Market Reforms and Social Development (1998) China is expected to become the world's largest economy in less than two decades. Whether it does so will depend on continued growth of the non-state sector and how well China adapts to global market forces. The essays in this volume consider the state of China's economic reforms, the institutional changes necessary for China to become a global economic power, and the interplay between market reforms and social development in China. |
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| The Revolution in Development Economics (1998) The collapse of communism and the statist model of development planning has led to a revolution in economic development theory. This revolution stresses the importance of property rights, a concept first promoted by Peter Bauer, a pioneer in this field. Other contributors include Karl Brunner, Deepak Lal, Julian Simon, Alan Rufus Waters, Steve H. Hanke, Paul Craig Roberts, Sir Alan A. Walters, and Alvin Rabushka, among others. Foreward is by Václav Klaus, former prime minister of the Czech Republic. |
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Renaissance: The Rebirth of Liberty in the Heart of Europe (1997) Prime minister Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic is one of the world's most effective spokesmen for classical liberal ideas. This book brings together 29 essays and speeches by Klaus, all of which were originally written or delivered in English. Klaus discusses a number of issues, including what he believes were the most important steps toward restoring the rule of law and bringing prosperity to a region that had neither and how it was possible to achieve such radical change in a short time. |
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| The Ultimate Resource 2 (1997) Arguing that the ultimate resource is the human imagination coupled to the human spirit, Julian Simon has led a vigorous challenge to conventional beliefs about scarcity of energy and natural resources, pollution of the environment, the effects of immigration, and the "perils of overpopulation." In his 1981 book The Ultimate Resource, Julian L. Simon challenged Paul Ehrlich and other neo-Malthusians who argued that environmental disaster was imminent. In this book, Simon brings the data presented in the first edition up to date. |
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| Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe (1995) While the communist governments of Eastern Europe made education a tool of totalitarian oppression, imposing Marxist ideas and eradicating dissent, today's post-communist reformers see education as an important vehicle for the revival of civil society, according to Charles L. Glenn. Originally commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education in 1989, Glenn's book tells the story of the communist takeover of education and the revival of educational freedom in post-communist societies. In telling that story, Glenn shows that the bureaucracy-laden American school system shares many of the faults of the schools of communist Europe. |
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The State of Humanity (1995) Despite the impression left by the news media and the environmental lobby, the world by virtually any standard is becoming more, not less, hospitable to human life. This new volume, edited by resource economist Julian L. Simon, assembles the work of an impressive array of experts not only in fields related to material resources but also in such areas as life expectancy, childhood mortality, health and disease, murder and suicide, and leisure time. The authors' conclusions are that, despite the forecasters of doom, things continue to improve worldwide year by year. |
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Africa Betrayed (1992) In this passionate indictment of the political and economic tyranny in black Africa today, George Ayittey describes how African leaders began plundering their nations' economies, imprisoning political opponents, and blocking economic progress. Although those leaders rejected capitalism because of its mistaken identification with colonialism, Africa actually has a tradition of markets and decentralization. Ayittey lays out that tradition before describing the Colonial Era, the march toward tyranny, the de facto apartheid, the military regimes, the intellectual repression, the corruption, and the dubious conduct of the West. |
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| Prosperity Versus Planning (1992) Political scientist David Osterfeld challenges the prevalent interventionist model of economic development and proposes capitalism as an alternative. Osterfeld argues on both theoretical and empirical grounds that the most effective way to promote growth is to establish a wall of separation between government and the economy. Building on the work of Peter Bauer and Julian Simon, Osterfeld emphasizes the importance of the market as a vehicle for growth. |
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Economic Reform in China: Problems and Prospects (1990) Distinguished Chinese and Western scholars provide a detailed examination of the issues associated with China's transition to a market-oriented system. Topics include the speed and degree of the transition, whether ownership reform must precede price reform, basic constitutional change, and opening China to the outside world. |
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The Peasant Betrayed: Agricultural and Land Reform in the Third World (1989) After studying land reform in 16 countries and offering illustrative examples from 11 more, Powelson and Stock conclude that government land reforms generally harm the rural poor more than help them. Detailing case after case in which government intervention has impoverished the peasant, the authors find only a few cases in which the government has made the peasant better off. In contrast, they show that in Third World countries where the state has left farming to the farmer, agricultural output has soared, famine has been overcome, and the welfare of the peasant has vastly improved. |
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