Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 Economic Development, Interdependence, and Incentives
- 2 Games
- 3 Development Traps and Coordination Games
- 4 Rural Poverty, Development, and the Environment
- 5 Risk, Solidarity Networks, and Reciprocity
- 6 Understanding Agrarian Institutions
- 7 Savings, Credit, and Microfinance
- 8 Social Learning and Technology Adoption
- 9 Property Rights, Governance, and Corruption
- 10 Conflict, Violence, and Development
- 11 Social Capital
- 12 The Political Economy of Trade and Development
- Appendix
- Exercises for Interested Readers
- References
- Index
3 - Development Traps and Coordination Games
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- 1 Economic Development, Interdependence, and Incentives
- 2 Games
- 3 Development Traps and Coordination Games
- 4 Rural Poverty, Development, and the Environment
- 5 Risk, Solidarity Networks, and Reciprocity
- 6 Understanding Agrarian Institutions
- 7 Savings, Credit, and Microfinance
- 8 Social Learning and Technology Adoption
- 9 Property Rights, Governance, and Corruption
- 10 Conflict, Violence, and Development
- 11 Social Capital
- 12 The Political Economy of Trade and Development
- Appendix
- Exercises for Interested Readers
- References
- Index
Summary
Just then there was a strong wind. It blew Toad's list out of his hand. The list blew high up into the air. Help! Cried Toad. “My list is blowing away. What will I do without my list?” “Hurry!” said Frog. “We will run and catch it.” “No!” shouted Toad. “I cannot do that.” Why not?” asked Frog. “Because,” wailed Toad, “running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do.”
– Arnold Lobel, Frog and Toad TogetherECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AS we know it, is a relative newcomer to human society. For most of history, the world languished in a kind of economic limbo. Centuries after the early Roman era, world per capita income hardly changed, lingering around $400 per year in both the rich and poor areas of the world. (Ironically, for centuries it remained slightly higher in what is now considered the “developing world.”) The world economy was dormant, technological change was slow, and advances in human welfare were virtually imperceptible, bringing to mind the ageless and changeless millennia of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. By the time of the Renaissance, however, per capita income in Europe slowly began to grow – to around $700 by 1500, creeping to $1,100 by the eve of the Industrial Revolution, the beginning of a spectacular economic takeoff.
What finally got the economic ball rolling? The answer, according to many, was the Big Push.
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- Information
- Games in Economic Development , pp. 33 - 48Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007