Developing Countries in the International Economic System: Their Problems and Prospects in the Markets for Finance, Commodities, Manufactures and Services

Abstract

Paper prepared for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 1992.

The four essays in this publication were prepared in response to the request by Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, Special Adviser to the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. He asked that I prepare an analysis of the operation of the international economic system as it affects the developing countries, as a background for UNDP's Human Development Report 1992. Dr. Haq's specific question was: how efficient and equitable are the functionings of the present markets in commodities, manufactures, services and finance? These are issues on which I have spent much of my working life, and I welcomed this opportunity to set out both the results of my earlier work and thinking, and the findings of the research specifically undertaken to throw light on the latest facts and ideas in these areas.

Keywords: human development, development, measurement, HDR, HDRO, UNDP, HDI