Neoclassical economic theory and development economics have failed to deliver the much higher rates of growth and overall development that they promised would result from the freeing up of markets. This book takes issue with the nostrums that underlie free market policies in both developing countries and the rich industrial nations.

The contributors want to rethink economics as a discipline and development as a process. Economics needs to redefine many of its concepts to reflect the complex realities of functioning economies. And development needs to be reconceived as a process of social change, in which each country's particular history and institutional workings take centre stage. They point the way to a much more sophisticated understanding of economic development. The ultimate prize, if theory can be grounded in a more accurate analysis of social change, is policies that really will deliver higher economic growth and greater social justice worldwide.

Silvana De Paula is associate professor in the Graduate Programme on Development, Agriculture and Society (CPDA) of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Her degrees include a Maîtrise en Sociolinguistique, a Master's in Development, Agriculture and Society, and a PhD in Sociology. In 1996-7 she used a Brazilian scholarship to pursue her research in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University. As a member of the CPDA faculty, she has taught and advised master's and doctoral students since 1978, as well as coordinating research projects and Lato Sensu Graduate Courses. Silvana's teaching, research and publications have focused on several topics: culture in the contemporary context, particularly in Brazil; cross-cultural processes; relations between countryside and city; Brazilian social thought; and civil society organization and movements. Silvana is a permanent member of the editorial board of the Editora Bom Texto in Rio de Janeiro. She has undertaken several projects with the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), including studies on the World Social Forum events of 2003 (Brazil) and 2004 (India), and research on Brazilian civil society since the Rio Conference of 1992.

Gary Dymski taught at the University of Southern California before joining the faculty at the University of California, Riverside, where he is now professor of economics. Gary is currently serving as founding director of the University of California Center, Sacramento. His publications include The Bank Merger Wave (1999), several edited books, and more than 100 articles and chapters on banking, financial fragility, urban development and poverty, credit-market redlining and discrimination, the Latin American and Asian financial crises, exploitation, and housing finance. He was a research fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, and has been a visiting scholar at Tokyo University, the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and the University of São Paulo. He is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a member of several editorial boards.
Silvana De Paula is associate professor in the Graduate Programme on Development, Agriculture and Society (CPDA) of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Her degrees include a Maîtrise en Sociolinguistique, a Master's in Development, Agriculture and Society, and a PhD in Sociology. In 1996-7 she used a Brazilian scholarship to pursue her research in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University. As a member of the CPDA faculty, she has taught and advised master's and doctoral students since 1978, as well as coordinating research projects and Lato Sensu Graduate Courses. Silvana's teaching, research and publications have focused on several topics: culture in the contemporary context, particularly in Brazil; cross-cultural processes; relations between countryside and city; Brazilian social thought; and civil society organization and movements. Silvana is a permanent member of the editorial board of the Editora Bom Texto in Rio de Janeiro. She has undertaken several projects with the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), including studies on the World Social Forum events of 2003 (Brazil) and 2004 (India), and research on Brazilian civil society since the Rio Conference of 1992.

Gary Dymski taught at the University of Southern California before joining the faculty at the University of California, Riverside, where he is now professor of economics. Gary is currently serving as founding director of the University of California Center, Sacramento. His publications include The Bank Merger Wave (1999), several edited books, and more than 100 articles and chapters on banking, financial fragility, urban development and poverty, credit-market redlining and discrimination, the Latin American and Asian financial crises, exploitation, and housing finance. He was a research fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, and has been a visiting scholar at Tokyo University, the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and the University of São Paulo. He is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a member of several editorial boards.