Quantitative Development Policy Analysis

High quality policy design and informed policy debates require rigorous conceptualization and quantification of the economic implications of policy options. In recent years, the array of methods available for this purpose has expanded on many fronts, ranging from the micro to the sectoral and macro levels, and from the analysis of markets to that of public goods and of technological and institutional alternatives. "Quantitative Development Policy Analysis" reviews and extends these methods. It aims to present materials in an accessible fashion. It should be both a reference book for policy analysts and a text for graduate students who wish to apply quantitative methods to policy analysis. The text is organized around 12 subjects and 12 computer exercises. The subjects develop in a systematic fashion the theories and methods for the analysis of consumer demand, producer behaviour, supply response, behaviour and welfare under risk, household models, price distortions and partial equilibrium analysis, real exchange rate analysis, transactions costs and agrarian institutions, social accounting matrices, multimarket models and computable general equilibrium models.
The computer exercises offer opportunities to quantify models for policy analysis in each of these themes and to stimulate policy alternatives. The book is accompanied by a diskette with the exercises. Also available is a manual with the answers to the exercises, both in print and on diskette. The text can be used in formal instruction, for self-study and as a source of information.