The following is from the current issue of 'Foreign Policy', and was posted
on today's electronic alert service of the Chronicle of Higher Education. I
thought it might interest members of the listserve.
Janet Atkinson-Grosjean, PhD Candidate
Interdisciplinary Studies, Green College
University of British Columbia
Prisoners of geography
The idea that market-oriented economic policies and the rule of
law alone can make all countries rich is losing credibility,
says Ricardo Hausmann, a professor of the practice of economic
development at Harvard University, and former chief economist of
the Inter-American Development Bank. Economic geography has
returned to the forefront of the development debate, writes Mr.
Hausmann, who notes that of the world's 30 richest economies,
only Brunei, Hong Kong, and Singapore are in tropical zones.
"Countries that are tropical, far from the coast, and landlocked
have three geographical strikes against them," he writes. When
analyzing economic growth, health conditions, and income
distribution, statistics reveal a less-favorable outlook for
tropical nations than for temperate ones. One clear hindrance to
market access, writes Mr. Hausmann, is the cost of land
transportation, which is up to 50 percent higher for the median
landlocked country than for the median coastal nation. Inland
African countries, China, and India thus remain far from markets
and maritime trade, he notes. The divergence in agricultural
productivity between the developed and developing world reveals
another problem: "Governments in advanced economies spend up to
five times more (as a percentage of total agricultural
production) on agriculture-related research and development than
their counterparts in developing countries," writes Mr.
Hausmann. He disagrees with those who say Mozambique could
become Singapore if it could only get its institutions and
policies in order. "If a region is poor because its geography
undermines agricultural productivity, impedes market access, and
facilitates endemic disease, then good domestic policies will
hardly suffice to foster growth." Mr. Hausmann recommends that
countries, as well as regional and international aid groups,
devote more resources to transportation infrastructure, new
technologies for agriculture and public health, and projects
that expand access to markets by making national borders less
restrictive. The cause of poverty in the developing world is not
economic globalization, he says. "It is the absence of
globalization -- or an insufficient dose of it -- that is truly
to blame for these inequities." The article is not online, but
information about the magazine may be found at
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
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