Centuries of Economic Endeavor

Parallel Paths in Japan and Europe, and Their Contrast with the Third World

John P. Powelson


Why have a few countries achieved economic development while for many it seems out of reach?

Why did the modern economy arise first in northwestern Europe and Japan? And what distinguishes those few economies that have achieved sustained economic growth?

These are the important puzzles that Jack Powelson answers in this original and important work. Building from an intriguing and neglected parallel between the histories of Japan and northwest Europe, he explores the paths of social and political development in those two regions to isolate a significant linkage between economic development and the distribution of political power.

With this parallel between Japan and Europe identified, the author turns to other regions of the world. He finds this special form of power diffusion missing from the histories of Africa, other Asian countries, and Latin America. This sharp distinction provides an important explanation of why development occurred first in Japan and northwest Europe (and Europe's cultural descendants in North America, Australia, and New Zealand) and why other regions of the world have not experienced similar levels of economic success.

In developing his argument, he shows how diffused political power and coalitions of adverse political powers brought about the checks and balances essential to the emergence of free markets. It is then the efficiency of free markets that permits modern economic development. So the author argues that it is the lack of forces bringing about pluralism that has thwarted the economic progress of many areas of the world.

Jack Powelson provides a powerful theory that aids our understanding of many current issues: the problems of the Third World; the challenges facing the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; the sustainability of growth in countries such as China where free markets are trying to operate in an authoritarian political system; and the long-run health of our own economy.

This book carries Nobel Laureate Douglass North's theory of institutions to another level. Combining economics and history, it is nonetheless nontechnical and accessible to the lay reader.

John P. Powelson is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Colorado.

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6 x 9, ca 576 pages

ISBN 0-472-10547-7

cloth 45.00E (tentative)

July