Deals and Development: The Political Dynamics of Inclusive Growth

Library Presentation Room, OU, Milton Keynes

International Development seminar presented by Professor Kunal Sen (University of Manchester).

Lunch (provided) from 12.00, presentation & discussion 12.30 - 14.00. To reserve your free place, please email the IKD events administrator.

Abstract
Economic growth for most countries that actually need it—in order to escape from poverty—is not a linear process, but proceeds in booms and busts. Yet most frameworks for thinking about economic growth in developing countries are built on the faulty assumption that a country’s economic performance is largely stable.

In his presentation, Professor Sen will put forward a new framework grounded in political economy for understanding how growth episodes emerge, and when growth, once ignited, is maintained for a sustained period. He will then apply this framework to examine the growth experiences of countries across a range of institutional, historical and political contexts in Africa and Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Malaysia and Thailand in Asia, and Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda in Africa.

The country analyses will demonstrate the explanatory power of the framework and the importance of feedback cycles in which economic trends interact with political behaviour to either sustain or terminate a growth episode. They will also show the path for achieving sustained rapid inclusive economic growth that can take a country from low income to middle/upper income status.