A crude distinction between economics and politics would be that economics is concerned with expanding the pie while politics is about distributing it. In this paper we analyze the relationship between the two. We focus on how an economy's initial configuration of resources shapes the political struggle for income and wealth distribution, and how that, in turn, affects long-run growth. Our main conclusion is that inequality is conducive to the adoption of growth-retarding policies. We derive this result from a simple political-economy model of growth, and present cross-country evidence consistent with it. The key feature of our model is that individuals differ in their relative factor endowments. We distinguish between two types of factors: an accumulated factor (called "capital") and a nonaccumulated factor (called "labor"). Growth is driven by the expansion of the capital stock, which is in turn determined by individual saving decisions. Long-run growth is endogenous, as the aggregate production function is taken to be linearly homogeneous in capital and (productive) government services taken together. The provision of government services is financed by a tax on capital. Because government services are productive, a "small" tax on

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Distributive Politics and Economic Growth

Arguments that relate regimes to growth focus on property rights, pressures for immediate consumption, and the autonomy of dictators. While everyone seems to agree that secure property rights foster growth, it is controversial whether democracies or dictatorships better secure these rights. The main mechanism by which democracy is thought to hinder growth is pressure for immediate consumption, which reduces investment. Only states that are institutionally insulated from such pressures can resist them, and democratic states are not. The main argument against dictatorships is that authoritarian rulers have no interest in maximizing total output. These views are summarized in turn.

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Political Regimes and Economic Growth

This paper assesses the achievements and limitations of commodity chain research as it has evolved over the last decade. The primary objectives are two-fold. First, I highlight an important but generally unacknowledged break between the original world-systemsinspired tradition of commodity chain research and two subsequent chain approaches, the global commodity chain (GCC) and global value chain (GVC) frameworks. Second, I argue that contra the macro and holistic perspective of the world-systems approach, much of the recent chains literature, and particularly the more economistic GVC variant, is increasingly oriented in its analytical approach towards the meso level of sectoral logics and the micro level objective of industrial upgrading. I conclude that closer attention to the larger institutional and structural environments in which commodity chains are embedded is needed in order to more fully inform our understanding of the uneven social and developmental dynamics of contemporary capitalism at the global-local nexus.

Global Capitalism and Commodity Chains: Looking Back, Going Forward

Contemporary globalization has been marked by significant shifts in the organization and governance of global industries. In the 1970s and 1980s, one such shift was characterized by the emergence of buyer-driven and producer-driven commodity chains. In the early 2000s, a more differentiated typology of governance structures was introduced, which focused on new types of coordination in global value chains (GVCs). Today the organization of the global economy is entering another phase, with transformations that are reshaping the governance structures of both GVCs and global capitalism at various levels: (1) the end of the Washington Consensus and the rise of contending centers of economic and political power; (2) a combination of geographic consolidation and value chain concentration in the global supply base, which, in some cases, is shifting bargaining power from lead firms in GVCs to large suppliers in developing economies; (3) new patterns of strategic coordination among value chain actors; (4) a...

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Global value chains in a post-Washington Consensus world

This paper explores the relationship of the informal economy to the formal economy and the formal regulatory environment. It begins with a discussion of the concept of the informal economy and its size, composition, and segmentation. It then discusses the linkages between the informal economy and the formal economy and the formal regulatory environment. The conclusion suggests why and how more equitable linkages between the informal economy and the formal economy should be promoted through an appropriate inclusive policy and regulatory environment.

https://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/meetings/2006/forum/Statements/Chen%27s%20Paper.pdf

Rethinking the Informal Economy: Linkages with the Formal Economy and the Formal Regulatory Environment

Few observers of Mexico and Brazil in the 1930s, or South Korea and Taiwan in the mid-1950s, would have predicted that these nations would become economic "miracles" several decades later. These newly industrializing countries (NICs) challenge much of our conventional wisdom about economic development and raise important questions about international competitiveness and export success in manufacturing industries. In this volume economists, sociologists, and political scientists seek to explain the growth of the NICs in Latin America and East Asia and to reformulate contemporary development theory through an in-depth analysis of these two dynamic regions. Gary Gereffi and Colin I. Bradford, Jr., provide an overview of national development trajectories in Latin America and East Asia, while Barbara Stallings, Gereffi, Robert R. Kaufman, Tun-jen Cheng, and Frederic C. Deyo discuss the role of foreign capital, governments, and domestic coalitions in shaping development outcomes. Gustav Ranis, Robert Wade, Chi Schive, and Ren Villarreal look at the impact of economic policies on industrial performance, and Fernando Fajnzylber, Ronald Dore, and Christopher Ellison with Gereffi examine new agendas for comparative development research.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East Asia

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Donald L. Wyman

Papers

Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East Asia

Determinants of Development Strategies in Latin America and East Asia