The Macroeconomics of Developing Countries

Book excerpt: The Macroeconomics of Developing Countries provides a comprehensive discussion of the exogenous factors and macroeconomic policies that affect the business cycle, long term growth, and distribution of income in developing countries. It examines countries dependent on natural resources and affected by supply rigidities in agriculture. They also feature dualistic markets, a large informal sector, rapid population growth, a vulnerable export sector, and chronic dependence on a volatile global finance. The Macroeconomics of Developing Countries uses these examples to analyse the impact of stablization and adjustment politices on growth, inequality, and poverty. Despite the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals there is little consensus on how macroeconomic policies can be consistent with these objectives. The Macroeconomics of Developing Countries demonstrates that a critical application of standard models to developing countries can generate erroneous results and induce the adoption of incorrect policy. In order to address this, it discusses the key structural differences between advanced and developing countries in order to justify the construction of alternative models.