Publisher's Synopsis
Structuralist macroeconomics has emerged as the only viable theoretical alternative for economists and practitioners in developing countries. Lance Taylor's work in this field codifies a new generation of structuralist macroeconomic models that incorporate the economic power relationships of key institutions and groups, integrates both finance and real macroeconomics and covers a range of experience in the developing world from the 1960s.;In an introduction, Taylor explains his methodology, describes assumptions underlying the models used, and reviews theories that relate economic growth and the role of financial assets. He then takes up basic structuralist models of a closed economy and moves on to consider the open economy cases. He incorporates developments in the field (inflation, financial crisis, exchange rate management, increasing returns, and the like) in a treatment that departs from economic orthodoxy.;Taylor first addresses the question of how to specify "closure" or define the causal structure of macro models. He also considers how income redistribution influences growth and output and how income redistribution interacts with inflation. Next, an investment-driven non-full employment growth model draws on ideas introduced earlier to illustrate how different sorts of macroeconomic policies affect short-run adjustment and growth prospects over time. Taylor then turns to the problems proposed by economic openness in a stylized semi-industrialized country, starting with international trade. A fix-price / flex-price model is developed, and additional models demonstrate cases of policy relevance as well as interactions between class conflict and growth.