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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Welfare Economics, Political Economy and Policy Reform in Ghana |
Author: | Kanbur, Ravi |
Year: | 1995 |
Periodical: | African Development Review |
Volume: | 7 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 35-49 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | economic policy social welfare Politics and Government Economics and Trade |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8268.1995.tb00064.x |
Abstract: | Economic policy reform touches upon two aspects of the subject of economics - welfare economics and political economy. The former develops the logic of how the gains of the gainers and the losses of the losers should be weighed against each other, in the context of particular ethical frameworks; the latter analyses how the gains of the gainers and the losses of the losers will be weighed against each other, in the context of the institutions of a particular sociopolitical system. This essay considers the subdisciplines of Welfare Economics and Political Economy as two frameworks for evaluating policy reform and applies them to the case of Ghana. It argues that the agenda for policymakers in Ghana is to work towards organizing and mobilizing the gainers from reforms which advance social welfare, so that resistance to such reforms from the losers can be overcome. The first decade of Ghana's Economic Recovery Programme (ERP, 1983-1993) is an example of a public sector led recovery which has gone a long way towards restoring the basic infrastructure without which private investment cannot take off. However, the time is now ripe for the baton to be handed over to the private sector. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French. |