Product Description

Covers the economic development in the third world countries, focusing on the globalization of trade, technology, information, and finance. Discusses recent theories of endogenous growth, economic effects of ethnic conflicts and provides proposals on how to improve the global economy in the 21st century. DLC: Economic development.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2083837 in Books
• Published on: 1989
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 698 pages

About the Author
Michael P. Todaro was Professor of Economics at New York University for eighteen years and Senior Associate at the Population Council for thirty years. He lived and taught in Africa for six years. He appears in Who's Who in Economics and Economists of the Twentieth Century. He is also the author of eight books and more than fifty professional articles.

Stephen C. Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. He received his PhD in economics from Cornell University. Smith is author of Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works, co-editor of NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals: Citizen Action to Reduce Poverty, and author or coauthor of some three dozen journal articles.

Customer Reviews

A very readable introduction to developmental economics.
Todaro in this book presents what is quite possibly the easiest to understand introduction to developmental economics that the world has to offer. He does not provide quick answers but a logical and well thought out conception of the complexities of the problems in a format that although not wholly excluding mathmatics, uses it only in appendixes, etc. to explain problems-- which leaves the book open to a wider audience (and also does not allow its readers into the overly simplistic answers that too much mathmatics sometimes hints at....) In my studies of development, this book more often than any other served as a quick reference and fairly handy bibliography. I recommend this book to any undergraduate student or student of public policy the world over. It should be a classic.

The best book on the complexities of economic development.
Todaros's text on the complexities a developing country must face and consider to lead itself out of poverty and backwardness gets better with every edition, now on its sixth. It is the only book I have found that, with unsurpasssed dexterity, combines economics, sociology and political science into a unifying frame that should be required reading for policymakers and government throughout the developing world. His writing style, clarity of exposition and long-term vision are absolutely second to none.

Accessible and Comprehensive
The greatest problem facing economists today (I should say "facing the world today") is how to create wealth in the poorest countries of the world. This introduction to the subject is accessible to any reader, even those with very limited previous knowledge of economics. The book begins with a critical summary of current development theories and then takes on a number of policy questions, with case studies. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and the publisher maintains a web site with useful quantitative and graphing exercises (with answers).

Michael Todaro writes from a left-of-center perspective and is more ideological than most textbook writers. However, he presents other points of view and presents them pretty fairly in my opinion. And I have to say that he scores some pretty big points against the neoclassical theorists by showing that their assumptions are frequently at odds with reality.

While some of Todaro's more stridently ideological statements can be annoying, I know of no other book that provides such a comprehensive, well organized, and engagingly written introduction to economic development.