Urban Food Systems and the Poor in Developing Countries

In many cities in developing countries, hunger and malnutrition are common amongst the poor, even when food is relatively abundant. Over the past two decades, a considerable literature has accumulated on the problems associated with rapid urbanization in developing countries – a literature that for the most part has neglected the important dimension of urban food systems and how these link production and consumption networks at local, regional and global levels. Similarly, whilst there is a newly burgeoning literature on global food systems, the contextual role of the urbanization process is rarely addressed. This paper attempts to fuse these two major areas of geographical investigation to highlight the issues that need to be addressed in future research programmes so that improved diets become accessible to all urban dwellers.     

Structural Adjustment and Performance in Living Standards in Developing Countries

Over the years, the World Bank's structural adjustment programmes have been criticized on the grounds that they have adverse effects on the living standards of the people in developing countries. The main objective of this article is to test the hypothesis that the adjustment lending countries have had a superior (or inferior) performance to the non-adjustment lending countries during the 1980s. A new dummy variable regression model is used to test this hypothesis. The model controls for initial conditions, external shocks and other exogenous variables which affect different countries differently. The standard of living is measured by several socioeconomic variables including per capita income, lifeexpectancy at birth, infant mortality rate, and literacy rate.     

New Technologies,Employment and Labour Markets in Developing Countries

This article is concerned with the impact of new technologies - especially, but not entirely, those that are related to microelectronics - on employment and labour markets in developing countries. Taking the form of a literature survey it looks at those impacts that have already occurred as well as effects that seem likely to occur in the future. Both sets of issues are addressed within an analytical framework that views the impact of technical change as the end result of a process which begins with the generation and proceeds via the diffusion of new technologies. The need for so broad an approach is shown to stem from the multiplicity of ways in which the generation and diffusion of new technologies influence each other and condition the ultimate impact of these technologies on employment and labour markets. Because many such mechanisms have not yet received much attention in the literature, there appears to be substantial scope for further research.     

Delivering Microfinance in Developing Countries: Controversies and Policy Perspectives

The article reviews three major controversies in the microfinance field: vehicles, technologies, and performance assessments for financial service delivery. Then it proposes that these controversies be resolved by a perspective emphasizing institutional plurality and external and internal efficiencies for individual programs. Questions for further research are discussed in the conclusion.     

Land Use Theory and Factor Intensities

Although Thünen's rent theory has been formalized and extended, his interdependent spatial theory of factor intensities has received little attention. The solution must be developed from a fully specified rent equation that recognizes the dependence of outputs on inputs, and the important distinction between fixed and variable costs. A general solution is found for the one-market, one-productive-factor case, with the limiting restriction that marginal revenue productivity must be rising more slowly than marginal costs. The flexibility and power of Thünen's model is shown by developing, from the general solution, scenarios under various market and production conditions.     

现代消费主义对发展中国家的影响及其后果

二战之后,作为一种全球资本主义价值观,源于美国的现代消费主义对发展中国家迈向现代化过程产生了很大的影响,很大程度上成为美国试图改变当地人思想意识和维护全球霸权的一种手段。走向现代消费社会似乎成为很多发展中国家不可避免的选择,然而,对美国大众消费模式的盲目追求和模仿并不符合发展中国家的实际国情,必然会产生很多不利于经济发展和社会稳定的消极后果,也会导致人们的思想意识出现混乱。     

Reassessing Fiscal Policy: Perspectives from Developing Countries

Over the last twenty‐five years an anti‐Keynesian orthodox approach has envisaged a prominent role for reductions in fiscal deficits in developing countries. Expansionary fiscal policies have been said to result in excessive expansion of aggregate demand leading to current account deficits and inflation, as well as displacing private investment, thereby inhibiting output stabilization and employment recovery. Moreover, chronic fiscal deficits are supposed to be associated with high and explosive debt/GDP ratios. The purpose of this article is to assess the theoretical adequacy of the orthodox approach in the context of developing countries. The author clarifies some common misunderstandings and finds that none of the conventional arguments against fiscal activism is wholly convincing. At the heart of the debate lies the question of assumptions, economic structure and causation mechanisms. The orthodox stories regarding the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy very often do not go beyond the simple monetarist assumptions or seek to verify the implications against the existing experiences and empirical data from developing countries.     

The Problem of Economic Regionalization of Developing Countries

In contrast to developed capitalist countries, where economic regions generally evolve on the basis of manufacturing complexes, the predominant region-forming factors in developing countries are usually mining and agriculture. Also, while internal economic relations play an important function in the economic regionalization of advanced countries, in developing countries it is foreign trade that is more significant since much of the output of mining and commercial agriculture is generally destined for export.