The regulatory framework, unplanned development and urban poverty: Findings from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The regulatory framework adopted in many urban areas of the developing countries has been blamed for aiming at unrealistically high standards and for being bureaucratic, thus putting legal land and shelter out of reach of poor households. The latter end up living in unplanned settlements, which develop irregularly, sometimes on marginal land, lacking basic infrastructure. Poverty is therefore perpetuated. This paper evaluates planning standards and administrative procedures as applied to a specific scheme at the outskirts of the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It is shown that the high standards for plot sizes and road reserves resulted into the production of only 3900 instead of 15,000 plots over the same area, had more realistic standards been adopted. The unit cost per plot would have been a quarter of what it came to be. Centralised and bureaucratic set-ups and procedures resulted into unnecessarily long periods before planning schemes could be implemented; or land, certificates of title or building permits made available to would-be developers. Many develop the land without these permits or titles. Land was much easier to get in unplanned areas but converting it to legality was virtually impossible.The policy framework supports the revision of planning standards; the incorporation of communities and the private sector in land delivery; and the decentralisation and streamlining of procedures. In practice, officials aim at high standards, centralised and lengthy administrative procedures, and direct public sector involvement in land delivery. Evidence is provided of the deleterious effects of the continued hesitation to address the regulatory framework whose revision downwards would result into more legal land being available, faster and at a lower cost; thus reaching more of the low income households, reducing unplanned development and making a positive impact on dealing with urban poverty.     

Macroeconomic effects of IMF-sponsored programs in Latin America: output costs, program recidivism and the vicious cycle of failed stabilizations

We investigate the effects of IMF stabilization programs, and the reasons behind the unusually high IMF activity and relatively low program completion rates in Latin America. We base our tests on a panel, and distinguish between IMF program approvals and completion. We find that Latin America has higher output costs of IMF programs (especially when completed), no improvement in the current account, and a much higher likelihood of program failure and recidivism than other regions. The common finding that entering into an IMF-supported program incurs real short-run costs on the economy is entirely driven by the experiences in Latin America.     

The systems analysis of conflict

This article is the outcome of a continuing programme of research involving systems engineers and political scientists. The ultimate aim is to explore the relevance of some of the methodologies of systems engineering to problems in the social sciences, especially the dynamics of domestic and international conflict. An initial exercise in modelling domestic conflict in terms of state equations (system dynamics) is described, although the study reflects the authors' interest in several approaches by the broadly based survey of past work and proposed diversification of their research.     

A negative report on the ‘near optimality’ of the max-expected-log policy as applied to bounded utilities for long lived programs

Much controversy surrounds the use of the portfolio investment rules induced by maximizing the expected logarithm of terminal wealth (henceforth referred to as the MEL policy). It has been thought that the MEL policy is a good approximation to the optimal investment program when the utility of terminal wealth function is bounded and when the time horizon is long. However, I exhibit a class of bounded utility of terminal wealth functions for which the MEL policy is a very poor approximation to the optimal program. Hence, the wholesale use of the MEL policy as an approximation to the optimal program is unwarranted.     

Housing Policy in Developing Countries: Conjectures and Refutations

This article discusses housing policy in developing economies.It examines recent research findings in light of earlier argumentsas to the benefits of more market-oriented approaches. It alsolooks at whether the recommendations of earlier work have beenrefuted or developed in subsequent analyses and policy measures.In particular, it reviews the empirical analysis of the effectsof policy on housing supply, the richer understanding of theeffects that land market regulations have on housing affordabilityand the functioning of urban areas, and the alleged mysteriouseffects that researchers claim effective property rights haveon housing policy and on development more generally. It alsoexamines the effects of the increased emphasis on communityparticipation, showing how it helps to more fully reconcilethe incentives faced by beneficiaries of housing policy anddonors. Finally, it examines recent literature on the welfareeffects of rent control. The article shows that some of theconjectures as to the likely benefits of more market-based policyhave been refuted, but large welfare gains for poor people canstill be realized by adapting this approach. Furthermore, thisapproach appears to be gaining ground as the consensus approachto effective housing policy.