Structural Change in a Developing Economy: Colombia's Problems and Prospects (Princeton Legacy Library) - Hardcover

Nelson, Richard R.; Schultz, T. Paul; Slighton, Robert L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691041636 ISBN 13: 9780691041636

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1971

Synopsis

This book deals with specific problems in Colombia as a means of exploring interrelated theoretical themes in the development process. Demographic and political as well as specifically economic variables arc given consideration in the authors' analysis of the constraints on the growth of Colombia's modern sector.

Originally published in 1971.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Structural Change in a Developing Economy

Colombia's Problems and Prospects

By Richard R. Nelson, T. Paul Schultz, Robert L. Slighton

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1971 The Rand Corporation
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-04163-6

Contents

Preface, v, 
List of Tables, ix, 
List of Figures, xii, 
I. Introduction, 3, 
II. Population Growth: Investigation of a Hypothesis, 8, 
III. Internal Migration: A Quantitative Study of Rural-Urban Migration in Colombia, 45, 
IV. Manufacturing Development: Factor Endowments and Dualism, 77, 
V. Urban Income Distribution in a Dual Economy, 128, 
VI. Constraints on the Growth of the Modern Sector, 157, 
VII. The Political Determinants of Colombian Foreign Exchange Policy, 215, 
VIII. Future Development Policy, 262, 
Index, 313, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

To some readers this book is mostly about Colombia. To us, the authors, it is about the development process generally. We do not pretend to have created a new "theory of development." However, the approach is quite different from traditional treatments. We have taken three important themes of the development process, examined and modeled these in some detail, and tried to show how these themes relate to each other. These themes are: the relationship between economic development and rapid growth of population and internal migration; development as a process of structural change in a technologically dualistic economy; and policymaking as a behavioral response by the government to the shifting policy preferences of the governed.

Why did we choose to organize this study around these three themes? First of all, it seemed to us that we could not hope to understand the development process unless population growth and rural-urban migration were built endogenously into the analysis and brought center stage. To be sure, the surge of population growth being experienced in Colombia and almost all other less developed countries is in part exogenous to their own internal developments — the result of widespread application of new public health techniques to control endemic disease. Nonetheless, part of the fall in the death rate must have been related to the sharp improvement in consumption levels coincident with the post-World War II spurt of economic growth. More important, the consequences of decreases in the death rate on the rate of growth of population depend on what happens to the birth rate, in particular, the extent and speed with which it declines, and this is in part a function of changes in economic structure. The pattern of migration is similarly endogenous to the development process, for migration is the reflection of a disequilibrium in the labor market that derives from uneven regional expansion of population, or economic opportunities, or both.

The literature on the determinants of population growth and migration is quite sketchy. The material presented in Chapters II and III aims to carry both theoretical and empirical analysis a considerable distance forward. These chapters develop several models and test them against data in a number of different countries, not just Colombia.

It seemed natural that these chapters should come first. The analysis of population growth and migration provides an extremely useful way to cut into the network of simultaneous dynamic relationships that are involved in the growth process. Population growth at once is a principal determinant of one of the major factors of production — labor — and at the same time strongly influences the magnitude and composition of th

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1971
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691041636
• ISBN 13: 9780691041636
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 338