A sweeping investigation into why two promising regions took such radically different paths.
According to Elson (Governing Global Finance, 2011), an international economist and consultant who’s worked with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, there’s been a “big reversal” in the fortunes of East Asia and Latin America. Since the mid-1970s, nations such as Japan, China and Singapore have benefited from globalization, experiencing sustained, rapid economic growth. However, Latin America, which was once the most important region in the developing world, has relatively stagnated. Elson presents a far-ranging analysis of why East Asia prospered while Latin America did not. He focuses on so-called “deep determinants” of economic growth: initial conditions rooted in history and culture, policy choices, the role of institutions and political economy. He contends that East Asia was aided by its Confucian tradition, its effective bureaucracies, and policies that promoted stability and investment. In East Asia, he says, government tended to view economic development as a long-term goal. By contrast, he says, Latin America was burdened by Spanish-Portuguese colonialism, rampant inequality and weak government administration pressured by outside interests. In this lucid, timely and meticulously researched work, Elson bolsters his thesis by comparing the evolutions of six nations: Jamaica versus Singapore, Chile versus Malaysia, and Indonesia versus Venezuela. The starkly different outcomes offer policymakers broad lessons, which the author deftly outlines in 10 “propositions” about the nature of successful economic development. Any economics text requires some intellectual stamina, but Elson does an admirable job of untangling the complex forces at work and presenting them in ways that laymen can understand. (The lack of executive summaries of each chapter is an unfortunate oversight, however, as it would have made the book even more reader-friendly.) Overall, the implications of Elson’s work are profound. Many believe that global growth in the 21st century hinges on emerging nations, and the author’s findings present a startling diagnosis of why some countries climb the economic ladder while others struggle to hold on.
Anyone with a political or financial stake in the developing world should study this compelling, scholarly work.
Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1137274748
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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