Readings (I)

I have reading for a while Blood and Debt. The argument of the book is quite convincing, namely the war wasn't a state-building driven force in Latin America because a set of of variables reduced intercountry wars. More detail on the complexities of the argument tomorrow...

The readings for next week are quite varied and interesting:

Caballero, Gonzalo (2001). Los fundamentos institucionales del "milágro económico" español. 1950-2000. Teoría y evidencia.
This awarded and recent thesis could be interesting to see parallelisms between the development of the State in Spain and in Latin America, from the 1950's onwards.

Goldman Sachs (2004). Growth and Development: The Path to 2050.
The George Soros Foundation and a set of mainstream economists are behind this work plenty of policy recommendations. It's the mainstream answer to the failure of the Washington Consensus, a new Trento Concilium with a summary of the economic and policy evidence of the last ten years. Interesting.

Lowenthal, Abraham et alter (1986). Armies and Politics in Latin America.
A classic on the role of the military in Latin American Politics. A must read.

Balcells, Laia. (2004) Trade Openness and Preferences for Redistribution. Can we Support the Compensation Hypothesis?
A promising work by my colleague that questions much of the conventional wisdom on trade openness and state growth.

Stern, Steve J. (1987). Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World. 18th to 20th Centuries.
A seminal work on the topic of participation of the excluded masses in the political arena. A must read to explain tax strategies.

Eckstein, Susan. (1989). Power and Popular Protest.
In line with the last book.

Grugel, Jean (1995). Politics and Development in the Caribbean Basin.
A guide for an outsider. The same for Politics in Jamaica (Payne) or The Democratic Revolution in Latin America, by Howard Wiarda.

Rodriguez, José A. y Ámgel Fernandez Prieto (2003). Fiscalidad y Planificación Fiscal Internacional.
This book have a program to simulate international variations in taxes. It can be useful to experiment with the topic of tax competition.

Wright, Angus and Wendy Wolford. (2003). To inherit the Earth. The landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil.
Someone recommended me this book for a different approach to those sectors out the legal market.

Also a list of 33 papers have been added to my readings list. The authors include classics on politics and elections, tax analysis, country and regional narrative stories and research works on the development strategies from 1950 onwards. They cover a good part of the field.