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Economic development has long been a dominant topic in sociology. Since Marx' and Weber's initial insights, sociologists have been unraveling the complex relationships in this ubiquitous process. Recent conceptual work (Smelser, 1959, 1963; Parsons, 1966; More, 1964; Eisenstadt, 1964, 1965; Rostow, 1963) has attempted to isolate critical variables and relationships among them in the process of economic development. One of the consistent attempts of this literature is predicting when, where, and how fast economic development will occur in modernizing Third World nations. Drawing upon this growing body of literature, this paper will outline an analytical model of economic development. This model is especially relevant to developing Third World nations, although it is sufficiently abstract to encompass economic development in other types of historical and contemporary societies. The term model has an ambiguous meaning. In this paper, a model is a map or grid of relationships among analytically important units. The model presented here is cybernetic, denoting key feedback processes, both negative (Weiner, 1954; Nadel, 1953) and positive (Maruyama, 1963). Ideally, a model should assign differential weights to various relationships, but in the model to be presented, only general weights will be assigned to some relationships. As will be emphasized, feedback relationships among units will be considered to carry more weight than other relationships in determining rates of economic development. Beyond this, existing data do not warrant further weighting. But an attempt will be made to delineate those variables within and outside the economy affecting the weights of any particular relationship in the model. In doing so, elements in the model can begin to approximate a set of propositions in a more general theory of economic development. For the purposes of analysis, the economy can be divided into two general sectors (Moore, 1967): (1) the productive; and (2) the distributive. Production concerns those structures and processes involved in gathering resources from the environment and converting them into goods and commodities, while distribution refers to those structures and processes dealing with the dissemination of commodities throughout a social system. The model presented in this paper will focus on relationships between and within these two general economic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, changes in the socio-economic structure in rural regions have been looked upon in the light of international migration, with special reference to the flow of labour from the Mediterranean into the northern and north-western industrialized countries of Europe. The effects of these increasing manpower movements do not always appear beneficial for both areas. The free movement of labour and capital in Europe implies a concentration and accumulation of economic activity in some few regions, and has the effect of depopulation and deprivation in many other areas. The resistance against the international planning of capital and labour distribution is still dominant among the powerful European pressure groups; also the prejudices against the countryside still operate. In order to increase the attraction of rural areas, breaking the vicious circle has been proposed through an international programme of large-scale investments in the socio-cultural sector of stagnating districts, including the areas where no industrialization may be expected. The increase of the general education level of the rural population can be one of the main stimulants in a development schema. For rural sociologists, this approach implies renewed attention to the study of the possibilities of radical change in rural communities. A successful reduction of the economic and social inequality between the rich and the poor areas in Europe should be a good exercise for the forthcoming development of the Third World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is to examine to what extent Henri De Saint-Simon, social philosopher's ideas are in fact a living force in contemporary economic life, particularly in French-style economic planning. In many respects the dominant mood of Saint-Simon's era was similar to that which characterized France after the World War II. Saint-Simon shared with many of his contemporaries a great fear of further revolutionary upheavals. However, unlike the traditionalists, he advocated the establishment of a new society based on the emerging forces of industry and science, not a revival of institutions based on concepts lacking relevance to a new age. In a well-known parable he maintained that the loss of princes, military leaders, bishops, idle land-owners, and others who held social prominence would have only a negligible effect on society, while the disappearance of the nation's merchants, industrial leaders, scientists, and workers would cripple the community. The task of the nation, therefore, should be to replace the stagnant forms of the past with social and economic organizations conducive to efficient production and distribution.

Among available economic data of less developed countries, foreign trade statistics are known to be most reliable and are used extensively. This paper, concentrating on Southeast Asian countries, examines the extent and variation of discrepancy in export and import recordings of their own and of their trading partners. The ratio of corresponding trade records exhibit varying heights and irregular patterns suggesting a larger degree of inaccuracy than generally assumed. Inter-Asian trade of Southeast Asian countries show a greater discrepancy than that of their trade with developed countries, and the trade ratio variance of the former is significantly larger than that of the latter at the 5% level. The rank coefficient of correlation between the level of discrepancy and the absolute size of trade value is found to be insignificant for most countries. Also the adjustment of trade figures by exchange rate overvaluation does not narrow the inconsistency in the bilateral trade recordings. The recordings of commodity-by-country trade data show a larger discrepancy than that of total trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]