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Both global economic inequality and poverty are growing problems, despite decades of development efforts directed at less developed countries. The paper looks at some of the most basic assumptions of the prevailing (neoclassical) development economics of the period, asking whether some of the failure can be attributed to misconceptions at that level, as they translate into practice in policies of IFIs such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Engaging recent works by Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and Brooke Ackerly, which look at development as the increase of human well-being--including freedom and functioning--and take seriously the perspectives of the world’s economically least well-off, particularly poor women, the paper also turns to more direct evidence of how those living in severe poverty see their situation and articulate their needs. Such evidence, collected during both preparations for the Fourth World Women’s Conference, 1995, and in the World Bank’s recent study, Voices of the Poor, suggests the need to re-evaluate the ways in which the problem of world poverty has been approached, such that both gender and the voices of the poor themselves are kept in the forefront of discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the political economy of international reserve holdings in the developing world. We argue that political institutions channel two types of domestic pressures for reserve accumulation—precautionary and mercantilist—but in distinctly different ways. Democratic institutions heighten the impact of mercantilist pressures, while authoritarian institutions heighten the impact of precautionary pressures. We provide evidence consistent with these hypotheses using data from eighty‐two developing countries. Confronting the view that China's reserve holdings are "excessive" or "worrisome," we also show that given its political institutions and economic policies, China's reserve holdings are not aberrant when compared to other developing countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]