Articles by Biswajit Dhar

The contentious issues of most concern to the developing countries - most importantly, enlarging their exports' access to developed country markets were kept out of the deliberations of the WTO ministerial conference in Singapore. Instead the conference concerned itself actively with bringing new areas within the purview of the WTO, which the developed countries have been pushing for.

Few Universal Solutions Biswajit Dhar Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, United Nations, New York,
IN the past few years, the Asia-Pacific region has been the focal point of attention due to the remarkable growth performance of the newly industrialising countries even as the industrialised world was struggling to find a way out of the persevering recession. The economic dynamism exhibited by the former has prompted many to comment that the Asia-Pacific region would emerge as the new growth centre of the global economy. This view has found support in more recent years as the growth syndrome of the NICs has had a spread effect with the countries of south-east Asia showing similar economic performance. Coexisting with these dynamic countries is another set of countries in the region that arc among the poorest in the world and for whom stepping up of economic growth has become a daunting task. Yet another dimension of Asia is provided by the central Asian republics which are in the midst of unparalleled economic decline. These contrasting faces of Asia are extensively documented by the ESCAP in its annual Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific. The latest survey, apart from providing a useful round-up of the Asia-Pacific economies, analyses in depth two of the more vexed issues of present times, viz, financial sector reforms and social security. What makes the Survey distinct from the other attempts made by intergovernmental organisations while addressing similar issues is its emphasis on the analytical content rather than on simple-minded prescriptions. By bringing forth the degree of variation in countries as regard these issues, the Survey gives an important message that there are no quick-fix solutions to such intricate problems as financial sector reforms. The macro-economic overview of the region has been provided by considering a mi x of analytical and subregional categories of countries. Thus, while the least developed countries (LDCs) and the developed countries have been treated separately, the remaining countnes have been classified according to the sub-regions to which they belong A point worth considering here is whether strict analytical categories would have been better suited for the purpose than the mix of categories stated above. This could have been done in the Survey without making any significant reclassification of the countries since the sub-regions are broadly found to conform to analytical categories. Thus, south Asia comprises essentially the low income countries, south-east Asia of the middle income countries and the central Asian republics of the economies in transition. Countries of the sub-regions of east Asia and the Pacific can be reclassified into their appropriate analytical groups.

Trade Policy and Development Biswajit Dhar AS countries in increasing numbers have taken to the now dominant policy of economic liberalisation, academic discourse has become replete with studies prescribing strategies that countries should adopt in keeping with the framework of liberalisation. Joshi and Little's article [Joshi and Little 1993] is another contribution to the long list of literature that is available. Our comment on the Joshi-Little contribution would focus more on the formal structure within which the authors make their suggestions about the elements of the future of the trade and foreign exchange policy for India. We would briefly examine the available literature on trade policy to present our views.

classic treatise on contagious disease De Contagiosis Morbis.
In the period examined here plague was absent from the Florentine state but there was a massive predominance of other infectious diseases particularly tuberculosis, typhus, malaria, small pox, influenza and gastrointestinal diseases, the diseases of underdevelopment. Cipolla states "Diseases do not develop in a vacuum. It would be a grave mistake to limit oneself to an aetiological concept of diseases which considers only the action of microbes or viruses. Epidemiological studies have made us increasingly aware of the role of environmental and socio-economic factors in the aetiology, incidence and prevalence of diseases. The pattern of morbidity in a given society is determined above all by socio-economic and hygienic conditions." This uncontestable conclusion is marred by one paragraph where the author restates his familiar position on the relationship between the demographic changes induced by mortality and its economic effects[5]. Seductively simplistic, if fallacious, this argument has been effectively demolished a number of years back by Brenner[6]. Cipolla's restatement of the 'dominant paradigm' of what Brenner called secular Malthusia- nism, in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary, is one further example of the power of ideology to overlook inconvc nient facts.

Complete Denial of Developing Countries' Interests Biswajit Dhar C Niranjan Rao The Dunkel draft on TRIPS is heavily biased in favour of the patentees. While their rights have been enlarged, their obligations have been considerably watered down. This marks a reversal of the spirit of the 70s when the issue in international negotiations was how to make technology transfer between the north and the south more equitable. The TRIPS negotiations have focused exclusively on the monopoly rights of patentees from developed countries and, in doing so, all the issues raised in the debates on the 'Code of Conduct for Transfer of Technology' and the 'Code of Conduct for Multinational Corporations' have been conveniently forgotten. The developing countries have to contend with an unequal world order. This is the most important message of the Dunkel draft on TRIPS.