* Draws on over 30 years of work by noted economist Pranab Bardhan. * Describes theoretical and empirical perspectives on economic agents both at the micro and macro levels of the economy. * Makes available classic, hard-to-find journal articles.

Preface. Acknowledgments. PART I. TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT. Introduction. Chapter 1. Credit Markets and Patterns of International Trade. Chapter 2. Localized Technical Progress and Transfer of Technology and Economic Development. Chapter 3. Quality Variations and the Choice between Foreign and Indigenous Goods or Technology. Chapter 4. Imports, Domestic Productions, and Transnational Vertical Integration: A Theoretical Note. Chapter 5. Disparity in Wages but not in Returns to Capital Between Rich and Poor Countries. Chapter 6. On Optimum Subsidy to a Lending Industry: An Aspect of the Theory of Infant-Industry Protection. PART II. VINTAGE CAPITAL GROWTH MODELS. Introduction. Chapter 7. International Trade Theory in a Vintage-Capital Model. Chapter 8. Dynamic Effects of Protection on Productivity. Chapter 9. Endogenous Growth Theory in a Vintage Capital Model. Chapter 10. Equilibrium Growth in Model with Economic Obsolescence of Machines. Chapter 11. More on Putty-Clay. Chapter 12. On Estimation of Production Functions from International Cross-Section Data. PART III. FACTOR MARKETS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT. Introduction. Chapter 13. Terms and Conditions of Sharecropping Contracts: An Analysis of Village Survey Data in India. Chapter 14. Terms and Conditions of Labor Contracts in Agriculture: Results of a Survey in West Bengal 1979. Chapter 15. On Measuring Rural Unemployment. Chapter 16. Labor-Typing in a Poor Agrarian Economy: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis. Chapter 17. Labor Mobility and the Boundaries of the Village Moral Economy. Chapter 18. Interlinkage of Land, Labor and Credit Relations in Agriculture: An Analysis of Village Survey Data in East India. Index.

This collection of essays draws from over thirty years of work by noted economist Pranab Bardhan to address the interrelated themes of international trade, growth, and rural development. Covering a wide range of important issues within the field, these essays describe theoretical and empirical perspectives on economic agents both at the micro and macro levels of the economy in development. Additionally, introductions to each of the book's three sections place the articles in perspective and relate them to current research. The essays analyze such issues as: various constraints faced by poor countries trading with rich countries, the implications of vintage capital models for trade and growth, and the nature of contracts in rural markets of poor countries. The intensive empirical studies concerning this last issue (using both large datasets and field surveys) work to provide a solid foundation for a more authentic theory of rural development. This collection will make available some widely cited articles that are not always easy to find, in addition to serving as an overview of Bardhan's significant contribution to these areas of study.

“Pranab Bardhan is a master of small, clear, and pointed economic models. He is also a virtuoso at making them speak to important questions of economic development. The last third of this book reveals yet another Bardhan: the patient digger after the ways in which social institutions and economic law combine to activate village economies in rural India. There is something to learn about economic development on every page.” Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate, MIT “Pranab Bardhan is one of the most influential development economists of his generation. His approach, which emphasises the interplay of economic and social institutions in shaping resource allocation, now permeates mainstream thinking about how economies work. These essays provide key insights into the economics of growth, trade, and factor markets and will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in the processes of economic development.”Timothy Besley, London School of Economics