Making World Development Work: Scientific Alternatives to Neoclassical Economic Theory

Front Cover
Grégoire Leclerc, Charles A. S. Hall
UNM Press, 2007 - Business & Economics - 645 pages

Making World Development Work is about economic development and its relation to population, environment and resource issues in less affluent countries. The essays presented here criticize the way most large development projects are designed and conducted and are written by professionals from a broad range of disciplines involved in current development research.

Making World Development Work explains why overly simplistic economic models of development have led to many failures and unnecessary environmental destruction. The editors contend the preferred method of development is through a systematiic process that integrates the natural sciences with economics and one that is based on scientific method instead of ideology.

Leclerc and Hall review the logical and methodological basis of neoclassical economics and its application to development. They provide a series of historical perspectives, including less developed countries that have improved successfully and others that have not been as successful. They complete the demonstration with a portfolio of current development research innovations in the social and economic sciences as well as in the natural sciences, including a new logical basis for economics called biophysical economics.

Making World Development Work offers new ways to consider development including the limitations of cheap energy, environmental degradation, and human population growth as the fundamental issues for any economic model that can have any hope of working in the future.

From inside the book

Contents

THE RELATION BETWEEN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND LANDUSE CHANGE
13
A BRIEF HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Models and Foreign Aid
39
THE NEED TO REINTEGRATE THE NATURAL SCIENCES WITH ECONOMICS
75
THE MYTH OF EFFICIENCY THROUGH MARKET ECONOMICS
90
HOW TO CONSTRUCT A BIOPHYSICAL ECONOMIC MODEL FOR A COUNTRY OR REGION
104
THE Myth of DevelOPMENT Examples from the Republic of Niger
142
ASSESSING THE POSSIBILITY OF SUSTAINAble DevelopmENT IN COSTA RICA
150
PUTTING Development in PERSPECTIVE Colonial and Neocolonial Dynamics in the Philippines
160
CHOOSING SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES EMPIRICALLY Susan Allan and Dean Holland
363
PART FIVE
377
ASSESSING AND HIGHLIGHTING FOREST CHANGE IN THE TROPICS
394
REDUCING PESTICIDE RUNOFF TO THE CARIBBEAN SEA A Formidable Regional Challenge
402
NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS AND FISHERIES Gary Sharp and Charles A S Hall
423
SHRIMP CULTURE IN LATIN AMERICA An Economic Experiment out of Control and
442
Doing Better Economics
455
RURAL ACCESSIBILITY DECISION MAKING Issues of Integration Scale and Sustainability
474

IS THE ARGENTINE NATIONAL ECONOMY BEING DESTROYED BY
178
TESTING BOSERUP An Analysis of the Relation between Human Population Growth
192
TRAdeoffs between INCOME AND EROSION IN A SMALL WATERSHED GIS and Economic
209
SIMULATION MODELING FOR CHARACTERIZING STRATEGIC STREAMWATER AVAILABILITY
216
THE APPLICATION OF LAND USEANALYSIS TOOLS ACROSS DIFFERENT SCALES
233
DERIVING LANDQUALITY INDICATORS FROM THE LANDSCAPE UNITS USED IN SOILS SURVEYS
251
MODELING LANDUSE DYNAMICS WITH GEOGRAPHICAL DATA The Case of Intervened
263
SCALE ISSUES IN DEVELOPING A DEFORESTATION BASELINE FOR THE REGION OF
280
A PRELIMINARY SIMULATION OF THE POTENTIAL FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN ERITREA
303
PART FOUR
313
FARMERS DECISION MAKING ON LAND USE The Importance of Soil Conditions in
344
AGENtbased Systems AND POLICY ANALYSIS Perspectives and Challenges
487
MAKING TROPICAL AGRICULTURE MORE SUSTAINABLE BY USING BIOECONOMIC MODELS
515
USING INPUTOUTPUT ANALYSIS TO ANALYZE THE ECONOMY OF THE GRANDE DE SAN Ramón
528
PART SEVEN
541
Watershed ScaleS AND LEVELS Experiences with Projects in Central America
563
IMPROVING POVERTYREDUCTION POLICIES
594
POSTSCRIPT The Elephants in the Living Room Charles A S Hall and Grégoire Leclerc
616
CONTRIBUTORS
623
INDEX
631
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Grégoire Leclerc is senior scientist with the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD). Charles A. S. Hall is professor of environmental and forest biology at SUNY, Syracuse. He is the author of more than 200 publications and author or editor of seven books including Quantifying Sustainable Development: The Future of Tropical Economies.

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