Leading Issues in Economic Development

Completely updated and revised in this eighth edition, Leading Issues in Economic Development, covers the main issues in economic development through professional journal articles by leading scholars. These articles are edited to provide greater accessibility to an undergraduate audience and organized thematically using overview essays along with explanatory notes and comments. This distinctive approach allows for a variety of perspectives while keeping the most important overall themes in sight.

This extensive collection of articles and essays is prefaced with an introductory section that covers the measurement of development, recent economic performance of less developed countries, and the discipline of development economics. It also provides historical perspective on how the world divided into rich and poor countries and treatments of international trade, human resources, investment and finance, urbanization and the informal sector, agriculture, income distribution, political economy, as well as development and the environment.

Gerald M. Meier is Konosuke Matsushita Professor Emeritus of International Economics and Policy Analysis at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

James Rauch is Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and Research Associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research.