Development Success

Augustin K. Fosu is also Visiting Scholar at the University of Ghana-Legon and honorary Research Associate at Oxford University (CSAE) and the University of Manchester (BWPI). Previous positions include: Director (Economic and Social Policy Division) and Senior Policy Advisor /Chief Economist at the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Director of Research at the African Economic Research Consortium. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University. Professor Fosu is co-editor of the Journal of African Economies (Oxford) and serves on the editorial boards of many other journals, including: African Development Review, Journal of Development Studies, Oxford Development Studies, World Bank Economic Review, and World Development.

As the importance of getting institutions right to promote development is acknowledged there is a rising need for sophisticated, contextual, historical narratives of how the now prosperous countries managed to do it. This book fills that need, fleshing out not just the Nordic model (with its commonalities and differences) but also compares countries like Switzerland and Ireland. A useful step away from the dogma of a single canonical model of development to the diversity and richness of paths countries have followed.

• Foreword ; INTRODUCTION ; 1. Development Success: Historical Accounts from the More Advanced Countries ; PART I: THE NORDICS: FINLAND, NORWAY, SWEDEN, DENMARK ; 2. The Finnish Developmental State and its Growth Regime ; 3. Can Norway Be a Role Model for Natural Resource Abundant Countries? ; 4. The Swedish Model ; 5. The Danish Model and the Globalizing Learning Economy: Lessons for Developing Countries ; 6. The Nordic Development Models: The Riddle is Still There, But We May Be a Little Wiser ; PART II: OTHER ADVANCED INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES: JAPAN, IRELAND, SWITZERLAND ; 7. Japan's Model of Economic Development: Relevant and Non-relevant Elements for Developing Economies ; 8. Committing to Economic Openness in Ireland: The Importance of Domestic Institutional Capabilities ; 9. Switzerland's Rise to a Wealthy Nation: Competition and Contestability as Key Success Factors ; 10. Country Role Models: Japan, Ireland, and Switzerland ; PART III: TRANSITION ECONOMIES: CZECH REPUBLIC, HUNGARY, POLAND ; 11. The Czech Transition: The Importance of Microeconomic Fundamentals ; 12. Hungary: The Janus-faced Success Story of Transition ; 13. A Two-Thirds Rate of Success: Polish Transformation and Economic Development, 1989- 2008 ; 14. Lessons from Transition Economies: Putting the Success Stories of the Post-communist World into a Broader Perspective