Beating the Odds: Jump-Starting Developing Countries

Description

How poor countries can ignite economic growth without waiting for global action or the creation of ideal local conditions Contrary to conventional wisdom, countries that ignite a process of rapid economic growth almost always do so while lacking what experts say are the essential preconditions for development, such as good infrastructure and insti

Justin Yifu Lin, former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, is director of the Center for New Structural Economics and dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at Peking University. His books include The Quest for Prosperity: How Developing Countries Can Take Off (Princeton). Celestin Monga is vice president and chief economist of the African Development Bank and visiting professor of economics at University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and Peking University. His books include Nihilism and Negritude: Ways of Living in Africa.

"Shortlisted for the 2018 Africa-Asia ICAS Book Prize, International Convention of Asia Scholars and Association for Asian Studies in Africa" "An instructive look at how countries have to start growing before the right institutional framework is in place, and how they can get around that. . . . One of the better books on developing economies in the last few years."---Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution "In their terrific new book, Beating the Odds: Jump-Starting Developing Countries, Justin Yifu Lin and Celestin Monga give the best overview account I've read of how countries might begin to achieve the lift-off from poverty trajectory, and an outline of how in practical terms governments might go about it. And although directed at poor countries, their analysis is more general." * Enlightened Economist * "Lin . . . and Monga . . . bring to bear their considerable scholarly credentials and practical know-how in this iconoclastic treatment of economics development in poor countries." * Foreign Affairs * "Passionately written and rigorous in its exposition, this book provides an excellent summary of what is wrong with contemporary development literature. . .a must-read for students of development economics."---Rahul A. Sirohi, Economic & Political Weekly