"The central economic paradox of our time is that 'development economics' is working while 'development policy' is not. On the one hand, the last quarter century has witnessed a tremendous and historically unprecedented improvement in the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people living in some of the poorest parts of the world. On the other hand, development policy as it is commonly understood and advocated by influential multilateral organizations, aid agencies, Northern academics, and Northern-trained technocrats has largely failed to live up to its promise." (p. 85). Thus begins one of the chapters of Dani Rodrik's new book, One Economics, Many Recipes. In exploring this paradox, Rodrik lays out a broad critique of prevailing approaches to development policy, offers fresh ideas for countries seeking to improve their economic performance, and argues for important reforms in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to make room for those ideas. The book is actually a collection of Rodrik's recent papers on growth, institutions, and globalization, but they constitute a remarkably coherent view of the development problem.
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