Pathways Out of Poverty

by Fields, Gary S.; Pfeffermann, Guy Pierre

• ISBN13: 9781402074127
• ISBN10: 1402074123
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

Until recently, development economists tended to assume a role for private enterprise in reducing poverty, but they didn't articulate it explicitly. The new institutional economics literature, with its emphasis on transaction costs, addresses the environment in which private businesses operate in various countries - the "investment climate".Building on this new thinking, Pathways Out of Poverty begins by citing the worldwide drop in the number of very poor people and goes on to identify the ways in which private firms and farms contribute to economic mobility and poverty reduction and what governments can do to enhance this contribution. In four Parts, the editors and contributors address economic mobility, offer numerous global examples, consider the importance of good investment climates, and examine the impact of public policies and public attitudes. Their theory, hard economic analysis, and case studies provide rich and innovative mechanisms for reducing poverty in developing and transition countries.

Author Biography

Gary S. Fields is professor in the Department of Labor Economics and chair of the Department of International and Comparative Labor at Cornell University. Guy Pfeffermann was for the past fifteen years Chief Economist of the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	ix
Preface: Peter Woicke	xv
Foreword: Nicholas Stern	xvii
PART I. THE ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR: STUDIES AND EVIDENCE
1. Reducing Poverty: The Overall Framework	3	(10)
GUY PFEFFERMANN AND GARY S. FIELDS
2. Escaping from Poverty: Household Income Dynamics in Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and Venezuela	13	(22)
GARY S. FIELDS, PAUL L. CICHELLO, SAMUEL FREIJE, MARTA MENÉNDEZ, AND DAVID NEWHOUSE
3. Long-term Economic Mobility and the Private Sector in Developing Countries: New Evidence	35	(30)
GARY S. FIELDS AND WALTER S. BAGG
4. Informal Self-Employment: Poverty Trap or Decent Alternative?	65	(20)
WILLIAM E MALONEY
PART II. THE PRIVATE SECTOR AT WORK: CASES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
5. Generating Upward Mobility: The Case of Korea and Private Sector Development	85	(20)
SE-IL PARK
6. The Central Role of Entrepreneurs in Transition Economies	105	(18)
JOHN MCMILLAN AND CHRISTOPHER WOODRUFF
7. Opportunities off the Farm as a Springboard Out of Rural Poverty: Five Decades of Development in an Indian Village	123	(32)
PETER LANJOUW AND NICHOLAS STERN
8. The Problem of African Entrepreneurial Development	155	(38)
TYLER BIGGS AND MANJU SHAH
PART III. THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
9. The Firms Speak: What the World Business Environment Survey Tells Us about Constraints on Private Sector Development	193	(22)
GEETA BATRA, DANIEL KAUFMANN, AND ANDREW H. W. STONE
10. Obstacles Facing Smaller Business in Developing Countries	215	(14)
BEATRICE WEDER
PART IV. PUBLIC POLICY AND PUBLIC ATTITUDES
11. Bringing SMEs into Global Markets	229	(18)
KRIS HALLBERG AND YASUO KONISHI
12. The Role of Government in Enhancing Opportunity for the Poor: Economic Mobility, Public Attitudes, and Public Policy	247	(36)
CAROL GRAHAM
Index	283