Book review

Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment. By Joan Robinson. Cambridge‐Cambridge University Press (Modern Cambridge Economics), 1979. Pp. x + 146. Hardback £7.95, paperback £2.50.

From Modernization to Modes of Production: a critique of the sociologies of development and underdevelopment. By John G. Taylor. London: Macmillan, 1979. Pp. xii + 335. Hardback £12, paperback £4.95.

Theories of Underdevelopment. By Ian Roxborough. London: Macmillan, 1979. Pp. xii + 175. Hardback £10, paperback £3.95.

Development Administration: Concepts, Goals, Methods. By George F. Gant. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979. Pp. xii + 343. $21.50.

Developing Country Debt. Edited by Lawrence G. Franco and Marilyn J. Seiber. New York: Pergamon Press, 1979. Pp. xi + 309. £20.

The Lending Policy of the World Bank in the 1970s: Analysis and Evaluation. By Bettina S. Hürni. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980. Pp. xvi + 173. $20.

The World Bank and the Poor. By Aart van de Laar. Boston, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980. Pp. xii + 260. $15.

The New Authoritarianism in Latin America. Edited by David Collier. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. Pp. v + 456. Hardback £15.10, paperback £3.65.

The Political Economy of Peru 1956–78: Economic development and the restructuring of capital. By E. V. K. FitzGerald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. xi + 360. £17.50.

Scarcity and Survival in Central America. By William H. Durham. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979. Pp. xvii + 209. £14.50.

Peasants and Poverty: A Study of Haiti. By Mats Lundahl. London: Croom Helm, 1979. Pp. 699. £19.95.

The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. By Samuel L. Popkin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Pp. xxi + 306. £9.

The Economy of Kenya: the Kenyatta Era. By Arthur Hazlewood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Pp. x + 231. Hardback £9, paperback £4.95.

Chinese Education in Transition: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution. By Julia Kwong. Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1979. Pp. xi + 207 $13.95.

Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley. By John Waterbury. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1979. Pp. xii + 301. $20.

The Volta River Project: A Case Study in Politics and Technology. By David Hart. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1980. Pp. 142. £7.50.

Economic Development, Cities and Planning: The Case of Bombay. By Nigel Harris. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1979. Pp. vi + 93. £5.15.

Sociological Analysis of the Working of Small Farmers Development Agency. By Mumtaz Ali Khan. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1978. Pp. x + 175. Rs. 32.

Planning for Basic Needs in Kenya: Performance, Policies and Prospects. By Dharam Ghai, Martin Godfrey and Franklyn Lisk. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1979. Pp. x + 167. £5.

Women in Rural Development: the People's Republic of China. By Elisabeth Croll. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1979. Pp. 61. Paperback, £3.75.     

Ownership versus competition: Efficiency in public enterprise

Certainly the introduction of product market competition into potentially competitive or, at least contestable, markets can improve performance. To take just one example, Morrison and Whinston (1986, 1986) estimate that even in the imperfectly contestable U.S. airline industry, the annual U.S. welfare gains from deregulation have been around $6 billion.But this paper argues, and further buttresses empirically, that ownership also matters and matters a lot. This does not necessarily imply that private ownership is always preferable to public ownership. PCs also engage in rent-seeking where possible, but they will try to maximize realizable rents by (relatively) keeping down production costs. Of course, where there are massive economies of scale and scope, high entry barriers, or externalities, public ownership may be preferred. (see Vickers and Yarrow, 1988).     

Costs and benefits through bureaucratic lenses: Example of a highway project

This article characterizes the perceptions of government bureaucrats about cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The observations arise after working with government officials on various projects and leading many executive seminars for government employees over the last decade on the principles and practice of CBA. Government employees tend to adopt one of three conceptual lenses: Guardians, Spenders, and Analysts. These perspectives differ sharply from one another, resulting in completely different meanings to the words benefits and costs. The orientation of Guardians is to “revenue-expenditure” analysis, while Spenders are oriented to “constituency-support” analysis. Analysts are oriented to standard CBA. The differences in perspectives are illustrated using an ex ante CBA of a proposed toll highway project.