homework

Select one of the following and provide an answer in 3000 words. Times New Roman font size 12. Inline text submission. Please, make sure you start with the prompt number and question you are answering. It is hard for me to read half of a paper just to figure out what prompt being answered.


1. How the Foreign Debt of a State is related to its Balance of Payments Deficit? Discuss the role of the International Monetary Fund as the provider of loans (including collaboration with the World Bank on Structural Adjustment Loans) and resolver of debt crises under the US hegemony. 

2. Discuss development strategies - import substitution industrialization, socialism, export-led growth, and neoliberal free market. Which approach do you find to be best suited for i) economic growth in general, ii) elimination of inequality and poverty, and iii) human development? Use measures of development. Briefly discuss if you see any positive contributions of the Multinational Corporations  in development of the LDCs.

3. Compare and contrast political and economic reforms of Russia and Brazil from 1980s onwards. Do you see any similarities/differences in their approaches to economic policies? Use other sources besides those covered in class. (For the case of Brazil make sure you cover both Kohli's and Levitsky&Roberts' Chapters on Brazil).

4. Compare and contrast theoretical frameworks of :

- Timothy Frye (political polarization--> pace and consistency of ec. and inst. reforms)-
- Atul Kohli (state types --> patterns of industrialization)
- Levitsky&Roberts (inequality, neoliberalism, commodity boom --> emergence of Left in LA)

for analyses of political origins of economic developments. Which theoretical framework do you consider to be the most comprehensive in its explanation of the economic developments as result of changes in political factors? State their differences and similarities.

5. Compare and contrast political and economic reforms of Venezuela and Poland for 1980s onwards. Do you see any similarities/differences in their approaches to economic policies? Given today's state of development of these two countries, which one of them adopted the best practice at that time? Use other sources in addition to those covered in class.