Exploration in Development Issues Selected Articles of Nurul Islam

About this book

Nurul Islam, head of economic and social policy at the FAO/UN and a key advisor at the International Food Policy Research Institute, has been a renowned expert on economic development for 30 years. Over that time he has researched and written about a wide range of economic development issues, focusing mainly on policy. This volume collects his most important writings, reflecting not only Professor Islam's own views on particular issues, but also providing an overview of the key debates and discussions taking place among academic economist and policy analysts over three decades. The collection is divided into three main sections: trade and aid, development strategy and food security - the section on food security being the most recent. It discusses food security in a broad sense, covering issues of availability and growth in food production, access or entitlement of individuals or households to basic food, and variability in food supplies and prices. In the section on development strategy, Professor Islam highlights how theoretical argument has veered away from organized "development planning" models which proved so important in the 1960s. He questions the role of models and policies throughout the decades and, following articles written in the 1970s or 80s, he includes articles he has recently completed, assessing the previous ones from his current perspective. In the final section, on trade and aid, he follows the academic debate on trade and exchange rate policies in developing countries from the 1960s to the progress of the WTO forums of today.

Contents

Development Strategy - Concepts in Development Economics: Development of the labour surplus economy; Concepts and measurement of unemployment and underemployment in developing economies; External economies and the doctrine of balanced growth. Development Strategy - Planning Models and Implementation: The relevance of development models to planning; Development planning and plan implementation - lessons of experience. Development Strategy - Lessons of Past Experience: National import substitution and inward looking strategies - policies of less developed countries; Learning from East Asia - lessons for South Asia - an epilogue; Reflections on development perspectives since the 1950s; Lessons of experience - development policy and practice. Food Security - Agricultural Progress, Past Performance: Green revolution in Asia - a few aspects and some lessons; Overview to population and food in the early 21st century; Asia's food and agriculture - future perspectives and policy influences; Comments on "The Issue of Sustainability in Third World Food Production"; Linkages between agriculture and the overall economy. Food Security - Policy Reforms in Agriculture: Government - issues in policy reform; Tensions between economics and politics in dealing with agriculture; Commercialization of agriculture and food security - development strategy and trade policy issues. Food Security - Poverty and Undernutrition: Agricultural growth, technological progress and rural poverty; Undernutrition and poverty - magnitude, pattern, and measures for alleviation; Hunger, famines and poverty - a few considerations of political economy. Food Security - Instability of Food Supplies and Prices: World food security - national and international measures for stabilization of supplies; Instability in world food prices in the post-Uruguay round situation - prospects and policy issues. Trade and Aid - National Trade Policy: Comparative costs, factor proportions and industrial efficiency in Pakistan; Export incentive and effective subsidy in Pakistan - an evaluation; The new protectionism and the nature of world trade - comments. Trade and Aid - Issues in Development Assistance: Recent trends in the theory of international investment; International economic assistance in the 1970s - a critique of partners in development; Foreign assistance and economic development - the case of Pakistan; Economic policy reforms and the IMF - Bangladesh experience in the early 1970s. Trade and Aid - World Trade Issues: Progress of the GATT negotiations on agriculture and developing countries - options and strategies; Is agricultural trade liberalization bad for environment?

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