States and economic development

Vol. 29 No. 2 (2009)

Apr-Jun / 2009
Published April 1, 2009
PDF-English
PDF-English

How to Cite

Kohli, Atul. 2009. “States and Economic Development”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 29 (2):212-27. https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/477.

States and economic development

Atul Kohli
Princeton University
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 29 No. 2 (2009), Apr-Jun / 2009, Pages 212-227

Abstract

Today the Washington Consensus on development lies in tatters. The recent history of the developing world has been unkind to the core claim that a nation that opens its economy and keeps government’s role to a minimum invariably experiences rapid economic growth. The evidence against this claim is strong: the developing world as a whole grew faster during the era of state intervention and import substitution (1950-1980) than in the more recent era of structural adjustment (1990-2005); and the recent economic performance of both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa—regions that truly embraced neoliberalism—has lagged well behind that of many Asian economies, which have instead pursued judicial and unorthodox combinations of state intervention and economic openness. As scholars and policy makers reconstruct alternatives to the Washington Consensus on development, it is important to underline that prudent and effective state intervention and ive integration with the global economy have been responsible for development success in the past; they are also likely to remain the recipes for upward mobility in the global economy in the future.

JEL Classification: O38; O43; O57, P51.


Keywords: states and industrialization growth in developing countries South Korea, India, Nigeria and Brazil state types and state capacity