Shortcut or Piecemeal

Economic Development Strategies and Structural Change
Author: 
ISBN: 
978-963-386-063-2
cloth
$69.00 / €56.00 / £50.00
ISBN: 
978-963-386-704-4
$24.95 / €23.95 / £20.95
Paperback is forthcoming in September 2023
Part of series: 
Publication date: 
2015
214 pages

Alternative strategies of economic development have received little attention in the literature. Academics rarely compare certain strategic features or assess the performance of different strategies in terms of outcomes. This book seeks to address that gap and to provide a theoretical background to the shift from industry to human capital-intensive services as the engine of economic growth. Pioneering studies reveal interesting trends and patterns that point to the growing importance of intangible capital for the level of GDP. They also indicate a much greater role of economic freedom in bringing about this second great structural change than was the case with industrialization. With this perspective on structural change and the role of freedom, Shortcut or Piecemeal also provides an extensive assessment of four key developing countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

Introduction

Part I: Developmental Strategies
Pursued over the Past Century
Chapter 1: Centrally Planned and Administered Economy
and Steep Ascent Strategy: A Complete Failure
Chapter 2: Development Economics-based Strategy
in Less Developed Countries: An Incomplete Failure
Chapter 3: A Shift Toward Better Understood (and Appreciated)
Classical Economic Prescriptions: An Incomplete Success

Part II: Transformations of Output Structure
in the Process of Economic Development
Chapter 4: Industrialization: The First Major Phase
of Structural Transformation
Chapter 5: The Shift to Human Capital-intensive Market Services:
The Second Major Phase of Structural Transformation

Part III: Applying the Conclusions: BRIC Countries’
Developmental Strategies
Chapter 6: Russia and China: Some Historical
as well as Performance Similarities
(up to a Point…)
Chapter 7: India and Brazil: Two “Great Potentials”

Postscript: On Choosing Inefficient Institutions

"Jan Winiecki, one of the best known and most accomplished Polish economists in the international arena, offers a comparative analysis of the steep ascent strategy of Communist planners to the forced industrialization strategies of the Third World. His overview, as the title suggests, carries a message for economists, political scientists, IR specialists, and to anyone interested in one of the eldest questions in comparative analysis: why some nations fail and others strive? A must read for anyone interested in what is relevant for the real world."
"In Shortcut or Piecemeal, Jan Winiecki, one of the top liberal economists in Europe, presents a penetrating, empirically based analysis of the statist systems and strategies. He unmasks their theoretical and philosophical fallacies and explains why they have failed economically, while also describing the successes of free-market systems. The book is both very erudite and clearly written."