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How does development economics address the issue of gains and losses from the displacement that inevitably accompanies many development processes? This paper argues that economists have struggled mightily between the core criterion of a "Pareto improvement", which vests individuals with infinite rights in their current standard of living, and its deeply conservative implications--both that it would prevent redistribution away from the rich, and that it would stop most projects from ever taking place. Where they have got to conceptually is a compromise, through using distributionally sensitive weights to evaluate the gains and losses of a project. In practice, however, systematic use of such weights in project appraisal or cost--benefit analysis is rare. Apart from advocating such use, which is true to the spirit of the conceptual position reached in economics, the paper argues that specific compensation mechanisms and generalised safety nets will reduce tensions between protecting the vulnerable and supporting projects that produce aggregate net benefits--including benefits for the vulnerable themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of choice of techniques and technical change are often discussed as economic problems in the underdeveloped countries, but economists have not systematically taken account of systems of political economy to which their discussions refer. The main argument of this article is that this failure to be systematic about questions of political economy may lead to simplistic recommendations about technology policies, and possibly to some rather ill founded optimism about the efficacy of appropriate technologies as a cure for problems of unemployment and mal distribution of income. It is useful, for illustrative purposes, to start out with a brief discussion of some particular points about A.K. Sen's analysis of choice of techniques. Possibly, the least-noticed assumption is the assumption of a planned economy. All surpluses above the needs of current consumption are directly controlled by the state and are reinvested. Investible resources are scarce and the planners choose techniques of production which maximize their objectives function, subject to the constraints of this scarcity.

The article features an independent body of an international organization, Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It aims to aid less developed countries in the implementation of its development policies by enforcing these nations with the learning and experiences acquired from industrialized countries. It is led by notable economists as vice president, associate members and involving the former French Minister, Robert Buron as its president. Its secondary function is to promote tasks which strengthens the link between institutes citing its program expansion which centers on the economic development research.

The proposal to establish, in Latin America, a teaching and research institute for the exchange of information among monetary authorities was first put forward by the Bank of Mexico during the Second Meeting of Central Bank Technicians of the American Continent in Santiago, Chile, in December 1949. The meeting adopted the proposal and designated an Ad-hoc Committee of outstanding economists from five countries to prepare the basis for the establishment of the center. The committee's recommendations were discussed at the Third Meeting of Central Bank Technicians and a basic statute and a statement of the general purposes of Centro De Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos were approved. Its main objectives were to promote a better understanding of monetary and banking matters in Latin America, as well as of the pertinent aspects of fiscal policy and their relationship to conclusions and principles which could be utilized in the formulation of practical measures by the monetary authorities to achieve a balanced economic development in those countries.