Ebook Economic Development Planning Models: A Comparative Assessment
Economic development, distinguished from economic growth, results from an assessment of the economic development objectives with the available resources, core competencies, and the infusion of greater productivity, technology and innovation, as well as improvement in human capital, resources, and access to large markets. Economic development transforms a traditional dual-system society into a productive framework in which every one contributes and from which receive benefits accordingly. Economic development occurs when all segments of the society benefit from the fruits of economic growth through economic efficiency and equity. Economic efficiency will be present with minimum negative externalities to society, including agency, transaction, secondary, and opportunity costs. At the same time, disintegration of national sovereign states into more fragmented nations along the ethnic lines would not help these newly formed societies to accede to a formidable economic development regardless of their form of government.
Regional economic integration of these fragmented nations seems implausible and may not be even beneficial, since the impetus for their political disintegration has been due to the ethnic conflicts, which cannot be expected to be mitigated for mutual economic benefits, unless such disintegration has been purely exogenous, and thus temporary. It is obvious that a new competitive economic development strategy for any country or region is to facilitate regional survival in the coming century, (Kooros and O’Sullivan 1997). “Economic development is a process by which an economy is transformed from one that is dominantly rural and agricultural to one that is dominantly urban, industrial, and service in composition,"[Manley 1987]. Economic development brings a higher standard of living and welfare to a nation, while attempting to adhere to the Parato Optimality, or a “win-win strategy” without negative externalities. In their economic development pursuits, many ideological transformations are confronting these countries: foreign debt conversion into foreign direct investment, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) privatization of economic activities; trade regionalization; conversion of import-substitute investments into export- expansion investments; technology transfer; co-production, and many other sound economic decisions, (Kooros, 1997).
Despite its apparent plausibility, markets by themselves cannot provide an accelerated and well-coordinated comprehensive economic plan, and therefore each country must develop a blue print for its own future economic well being. Markets have created benefits over the long run, and only through trial and errors, leaving behind the many scars of failures with negative externalities. For example, the degradation of our environment, (the vanishing of the rain forests at thousands of acres per hour, causing catastrophic climatic changes including extensive forest fires, and heat waves- North east Florida and Texas in July 1998, the rise and decline of cities, plagued with unmanageable problems and crimes, decreasing returns to scale, (with widened and enlarged tax base), the widening of income dispersion, adulteration of food resources with unmanageable long-term negative consequences, (Kooros and Deloizer 1998), and many other socioeconomic and technological problems, with inability to making the needed timely corrections.
Alternatively, as with the creation of an urban center, or formulation of a business strategy, there is a need for comprehensive economic planning. This means determining the country's core competencies, resources, and long-term comparative advantage, and formulating the country's priorities, and the manner by which its objectives can be met. Since the outputs of the market are determined by trail-and error, and over a long period of time, the development of such a comprehensive blue print is extremely crucial. Large urban centers, or even a comprehensive university cannot be designed ex-post facto, after the problems have emerged, nor can such problems be mitigated through ad hoc trial an-error, or the market system, (in which some economists have developed irrationally infinite confidence), because markets are not coordinated. Some markets are also manipulated by oligopolies. It took two hundred years for the United States to reach its stage of economic maturity; but people in other countries want economic development and democratization to occur over night. Therefore, accelerated and comprehensive planning in the manner proposed by Kooros in this paper is a necessity.
Download
PDF Ebook Economic Development Planning Models: A Comparative Assessment
Posted in :
