A valuable contribution to a vital economic debate.
A comprehensive survey of the history of theories surrounding global development, including a new perspective that emphasizes community participation and local solutions.
In the late 1960s, there was a watershed shift in development theory that ushered in radical reconsiderations of the field’s fundamental ideas, especially regarding free market, catalyzed economic growth and top-down governmental intervention. Boateng (Development in Unity: Volume II, 2015, etc.), the chancellor of All Nations University College in Ghana and an emeritus professor of statistics, furnishes a magisterial synopsis of this academic movement as well as a concise, scholarly overview of its history. He lucidly articulates the virtues and vices of the major theoretical paradigms, including the largely neoliberal Washington Consensus of 1989 and the New Washington Consensus that replaced it after the 2008 financial crisis, which focused more on inequality. Boateng proposes his own theoretical innovation—a “root-based sustainable development model” that aims at a more holistic measure of success—one that not only includes economic stimulus, but also the establishment of democratic institutions, the mitigation of socio-economic inequality, and the empowerment of the local, active population. He also addresses the “poverty-disaster nexus,” the correlation between economic blight and the ascendancy of violent extremism and crime. At the heart of Boateng’s view is a trust in and respect for locals’ ability to achieve self-governance: “despite the constraints they often face, the local people are knowledgeable and skilful managers of their own environments.” Boateng’s own theoretical contributions are provocatively original and even radical in their advocacy of local participation, placing “lived experience and evidence-based folk knowledge” on a par with scholarly expertise. Also, he soberly recommends a multivalent approach that combines the public and private sectors with representative community councils. However, the author includes a series of scholarly articles—for example, an essay on inflation in Ghana—that will only appeal to those with a professional interest in those particular subjects. Further, Boateng’s prose can be verbose at times; in one sentence, for instance, he describes the same phenomenon as a “footprint,” a “missing chain,” and a “bridge.” However, the overall study remains as insightful as it is rigorous.
A valuable contribution to a vital economic debate.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4828-7853-0
Page Count: 404
Publisher: PartridgeAfrica
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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