Articles by M S Shivakumar

Pragmatism in a Changing World Lessons from Vietnam M S Shivakumar In recentyears, Vietnam has recorded remarkably high growth rates whilst ensuring equity and national predominance by adopting policies that in some ways balanced the role of the Communist Party, state and private sectors. Reforms, in general, were undertaken keeping socialist principles and institutions intact. This paper attempts to provide an overview of the most important political developments in Vietnam since 1986, and examines the role of the party in shaping the perspectives of the state and the private sectors that guarantees social and economic equities. For this analysis, the 8th national party congress, held in June 1996, in Hanoi, is considered as a point of reference. It concludes that the party's hold on the population remains strong, and the current changes in Vietnam will help Hanoi defend its sovereignty, not only economically, but also culturally and politically, ft seems possible that Vietnam will develop in tandem with China but with a lesser role for the party in state affairs.

and that is what I appreciate.
This book helps teaching macroeconomics in developing countries like ours in a rigorous way. If I were using it as a text. I would supplement it with others such as Bhaduri,4 and Rakshit. 'Bhaduri' s book to introduce the student to the work of Kalecki (whose name appears in Jha's bibliography but not in the index), and Rakshit's for its analysis of the dualism model. Both would serve to round off the material for the Indian student. From there the student can move on to other things, for example Pasinetti's recent work on structural economic dynamics," although this would be a big jump as issues of technology, learning, and other things will have to be brought in from elsewhere.