Table Of ContentTRADE, PLANNING AND RURAL
DEVELOPMENT
Also by Azizur Rahman Khan and published by Macmillan
THE STRATEGY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN BANGLADESH
(with Mahabub Hossain)
COLLECTIVE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOVIET
CENTRAL ASIA (with Dharam Ghai)
AGRARIAN SYSTEMS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (editor with
Dharam Ghai, Eddy Lee and Samir Radwan)
THE ECONOMY OF BANGLADESH
GROWTH AND INEQUALITY IN PAKISTAN (editor with Keith Griffin)
Trade, Planning and
Rural Developinent
Essays in Honour of Nurul Islam
Edited by
Azizur Rahman Khan
Professor of Economics
University of California, Riverside
and
Rehman Sobhan
Professorial Fellow
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Dhaka
M
MACMILLAN
© Azizur Rahman Khan and Rehman Sobhan 1990
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990
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First published 1990
Published by
Palgrave Macmillan
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Trade, planning and rural development: essays in honour of
Nurul Islam.
1. Economic development
I. Khan, Azizur Rahman II. Sobhan, Rehman
330.9
ISBN 978-1-349-11417-7 ISBN 978-1-349-11415--3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-11415-3
Contents
Notes on the Contributors vii
Introduction
Azizur Rahman Khan and Rehman Sobhan 1
I. Trade and Aid
1 Parabolic Welfare Functions and Development
Assistance
Jan Tinbergen 9
2 Cost of Directly Unproductive Profit-Seeking and
Rent-Seeking Activities: Some Conceptual Issues
Jagdish N. Bhagwati 18
3 On Some Unresolved Issues in Optimum Tariff
Theory
Wahidul Haque 27
4 Comparative Advantage and Free Trade
Paul Streeten 36
5 The Governance Gap
Just Faa/and and Jack Parkinson 53
II. Planning and Development
6 Participatory Development: Some Perspectives
from Grassroots Experience
Dharam Ghai 79
7 The Changing Role of Economic Planning in Japan
Saburo Okita 116
8 Project Evaluation as an Aid to Planning: How
Successful has the Innovation Been?
Azizur Rahman Khan 125
III. Rural Development
9 A View of Rural Development, 1980s Vintage (or
v
vi Contents
why some of the Emperor's clothes - and his rice -
should be made at home)
Gustav Ranis 139
10 Poverty and Development: Prospects and Priorities
for the 1990s
John W. Mellor 156
11 Some Reflections on Bangladesh Development:
Looking Backward to the Future
Mark W. Leiserson 174
12 Foodgrain Pricing Policy in Bangladesh:
Procurement, Sales, Imports and Public Stocks
Abu A. Abdullah 181
13 Returns from Education in Rural Bangladesh
Mahabub Hossain 199
IV. In Lieu of a Conclusion: A Personal Reminiscence
14 Economics Comes of Age in a Developing
Country: The Case of Bangladesh
Austin Robinson 223
Index 231
Notes on the Contributors
Abu A. Abdullah is a Research Director of the Bangladesh Institute
of Development Studies.
Jagdish N. Bhagwati is Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics, and
Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.
Just Faaland, now at the Christian Michelsen Institute, Norway,
where until 1988 he had been Director for over twenty years, is a
former President of the OECD Development Centre. He was a
member of the International Advisory Board of the Pakistan Insti
tute of Development Economics when it was headed by Nurul
Islam.
Dharam Ghai is Director of the United Nations Research Institute
for Social Development.
Wahidul Haque, Professor of Economics and Mathematics, Toronto
University, is currently Minister of Finance, Government of Ban
gladesh.
Mahabub Hossain is Director General of the Bangladesh Institute of
Development Studies.
Azizur Rahman Khan is Professor of Economics, University of Cali
fornia, Riverside. He was a former Research Director of the Pakistan
Institute of Development Economics and Bangladesh Institute of
Development Studies.
Mark W. Leiserson immediately preceded Nurul Islam as the Direc
tor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. Later he
administered the Ford Foundation programme of assistance to the
Institute for a number of years while he was Professor of Economics
at Yale University.
John W. Mellor is Director of the International Food Policy Research
Institute, Washington, DC.
Saburo Okita was Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is now
Chairman, Institute of Domestic and International Policy Studies,
Tokyo.
Jack Parkinson was until recently Professor and Chairman of the
Department of Economics, Nottingham University.
Gustav Ranis, Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics,
Yale University, was the first Director of the Pakistan Institute of
Development Economics and a member of its International Advisory
Board in later years.
vii
viii Note on the Contributors
Sir Austin Robinson, Professor Emeritus, Cambridge University, and
a former President of the International Economic Association,
played an important part in the setting-up of the Pakistan Institute of
Development Economics. He was a member of its International
Advisory Board.
Rehman Sobhan, Professorial Fellow and former Director General of
the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, was a member of
the Bangladesh Planning Commission when it was headed by Nurul
Islam, and a colleague of his during his years with the Department of
Economics, Dhaka University.
Paul Streeten, Professor of Economics, Boston University, was a
member of the International Advisory Board of the Pakistan Insti
tute of Development Economics.
Jan Tinbergen, a first recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economic Science in 1969, was a member of the International Advis
ory Board of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
Introduction
This volume is a collection of essays contributed by the friends,
colleagues and students of Nurul Islam to commemorate the sixtieth
anniversary of his birth. The essays cover the three major themes that
characterise the evolution of Nurul Islam's professional work and
interest. The purpose of this introduction is not to provide a bio
graphical note on Nurul Islam. Nor does it present a comprehensive
discussion of his work or writings. Its objective is the more modest
one of conveying some sense of the variety and richness of his work
by simply enumerating some of his major contributions since he
began his professional career as an economist in the mid 1950s.
The first decade of Nurul Islam's work was dedicated to the
teaching of economics at the University of Dhaka. During this period
he started the tradition of modern economics in Bangladesh (then
East Pakistan) both in teaching and in research. An entire generation
of economists was trained and inspired by him during this period. It
was under his leadership that the university adopted a modern
curriculum in economics. It was again his pioneering work that
started the tradition of modern economic research in Bangladesh by
emphasising the use of quantitative methods. He was also involved in
the design and implementation of some of the earliest surveys in
Bangladesh, e.g. those on the marketing of jute, the use of rural
credit, and unemployment.
The next phase of his career started in 1964 when he became the
first native Director of the Pakistan Institute of Development Econ
omics. He continued in this position until the break-up of Pakistan
and the creation of Bangladesh at the end of1 971. During this period
Nurul Islam transformed the Institute from an embryonic organis
ation dependent on foreign advisers to a major centre of applied
economic research in the developing world, predominantly staffed by
nationals. During this phase Nurul Islam was also instrumental in
setting up the organisation that later became the Bangladesh Institute
of Development Studies.
Early in his career Nurul Islam became interested in social and
political issues. During the 1960s he became particularly involved in
the question of the autonomy of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan, the
region that had been subjected to systematic discrimination by the
rulers of Pakistan). As a member of Pakistan's National Finance
1
