Abstract
This book under review is a significant addition to the growing literature on Bangladesh’s economic development. The purpose of the book is to analyse the necessary and sufficient conditions of the development of Bangladesh’s economy. The necessary conditions imply the factors of economic growth—land, labour, capital and technology—while sufficient conditions include class, power, political settlement and formal and informal institutions (pp. xii–xiii). Although quantitative, the book reads clearly and presents its analysis in ways that are friendly to qualitative researchers. The study is largely descriptive and analytical in its approach. It has a total of eight chapters. These chapters aptly capture the current scenario on the state of Bangladesh’s agriculture, manufacturing industry, financial sector, health, poverty and inequality, political settlements and outcomes. They present a sound analysis of the underlying causes driving the widening gaps between the potentials and the current state of economic affairs and come up with insightful propositions on how to address the needed tasks to address the problems and issues. Each chapter is based on a well-defined conceptual framework on stability, transformation and sustainability.
Dr Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, an economics professor and current chairman of the department of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, should be applauded for writing this interesting, insightful and thought-provoking book on Bangladesh’s economic development. Bangladesh is often hailed as a model of economic development. The country is termed as a ‘development surprise’, ‘development paradox’ or ‘development conundrum’, given the absence of good governance. Pointing out the ‘high’ rate of growth in Bangladesh’s gross domestic product (GDP), a section disseminates a belief of the precedence of economic growth even without functioning institutions. They often assert that economic development is more important than an inclusive political system. Also, Bangladesh is facing challenges such as population growth, poverty, political instability, climate change and extreme weather events. Especially changes in the densely populated coastal zone illustrate that, in practice, ‘development’ means different things for different people (Mahmud et al., 2020).
In Bangladesh, the present debate centres on the question whether economic growth or democracy would be prioritized. The author raises several questions on the official estimations of GDP. His analysis reveals that the official figure of GDP growth rate is overestimated and hardly substantiated by the available evidence. The COVID-19 pandemic is raising some fundamental questions about what makes a community, a population and a nation sustainable. Social equity and intergenerational justice are indeed integral to well-being and sustainability in space and over time (Dodds et al., 2020). Titumir has skilfully shown how the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the economy on all fronts. As a result, productivity is declining in Bangladesh due to the inherent weaknesses of the socio-economic and political institutions. In fact, lockdown has had an adverse impact on various sectors of the economy. Moreover, due to the increase in import costs in comparison to the export earnings, there has been a deficit in the overall balance of payments since fiscal year 2017–2018. Bangladesh is experiencing a jobless growth for the absence of increase in private investment. In their new book, Khatun and Saadat (2020) argue that youth unemployment is one of the most serious challenges in Bangladesh. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2016–2017 of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) reveals that while the national unemployment rate is 4.2%, youth unemployment rate is as high as 10.6%. The share of unemployed youth in total unemployment is 79.6%. More strikingly, unemployment rate among youth with tertiary level education is 13.4%. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2016–2017 also indicates that unemployment is highest among youth with secondary level education (28%). Moreover, 29.8% of the youth are not in education, employment or training. This implies that in Bangladesh, education is not empowering youth with the right skill sets to be deemed employable in the job market.
The author notes that the availability of agricultural land is on the decline because of rapid urbanization. However, he ignores the severity of land disputes in Bangladesh stemming from the legacy of the British colonial rule in Bengal. Rahman and Hossain (2020) show that the annual number of land litigation cases pending in major courts is 1.4 million, and 120 million people are affected by land-related disputes. It is further observed that land-related cases need an average of 9.5 years for settlement. In the fourth chapter, the book discusses about the financial sector with a special focus on the banking system and capital market. Bangladesh scored 38.3 out of 100 and ranked 130th out of 141 countries in terms of soundness of banks (p. 99). The study explores how malpractice has impacted the overall performance of this sector and identifies the weaknesses and suggests the way forward. Political influence is a major concern for the banking sector in Bangladesh. Therefore, Robin et al. (2017) suggest that the government should not intervene in the process of appointment of directors in public or state-owned commercial banks and also give autonomy to the central bank to formulate appropriate guidelines to block politically linked personalities from the bank board of both public and private sector banks. The fifth chapter offers an enlightening overview of the education sector in Bangladesh. Systematic reforms in the education sector should be attempted for several specific reasons: (a) to take advantage of the current demographic dividend; (b) to address the changing needs and requirements relating to the job markets; and (c) to develop the skills of the people, especially the huge numbers of youth population of the country.
The book effectively delivers a plethora of messages and insights to its readers. First, democratic political institutions are to be given adequate space and opportunity to operate autonomously for the sake of sustainable economic developments. Political institutions and economic developments could go hand in hand. Second, decentralization needs to be operationalized; for instance, agricultural production systems have become more and more centralized. Consequently, primary producers do not get the larger share of the profit; instead, it goes to the middlemen. Third, sustainability and environmental issues require serious policy interventions. Fourth, budgetary allocation in the education sector is needed to abolish the current disparity in the education and, at the same time, it is important to ensure autonomy in higher education institutions. Due to the COVID-19 effects on the students’ mental health, the author emphasized on the need for public health education and also abridging pupil–teacher ratio. The average teacher–student ratio in public universities is 1:40 which is 1:27 in private universities (p. 150). It is also found that a primary factor why public spending on education, health and social protection is so low in Bangladesh is the low levels of revenues due to low tax effort. Bangladesh collects a mere 1% of GDP from personal income taxes, while the top 10% of the population owns 36% of the total national income (p. 153). Fifth, health sector is fragile in Bangladesh. Out-of-pocket expenditure—which is directly paid by a patient during service use and not reimbursed by any insurance coverage—in Bangladesh is increasing over time. Therefore, the government needs to formulate a policy guideline for ensuring universal healthcare system. Sixth, financial reform is need of the day for the sake of transparency and fairness. Public spending needs to be placed in a framework of political accountability and legislative scrutiny. Decentralization could be a viable policy solution. Seventh, industrial development could be accelerated by means of state capacity building and technological catch-up with clean environment. Eighth, trade facilitation is a prerequisite to regional economic integration. Bangladesh’s balance of payment problem and trade imbalance are barriers to the South Asian regional integration. Finally, in terms of poverty and inequality, COVID-19 has exposed the deep divide in the society. There has been a slowdown in poverty reduction in Bangladesh, and as a result, social inequality is on the rise. The book presents some very concrete measures both in terms of policies and actions.
Overall, the book vigorously highlights the laps and gaps of economic growth and development in Bangladesh. The findings have greater socio-economic implications to the countries of the South Asian region. This case study of Bangladesh’s development pathways would further encourage other South Asian scholars to undertake similar type of research projects. Methodologically, the book has a weakness. The book, however, would have benefitted with more primary evidence. The author relied primarily on secondary materials such as books, articles, reports and media contents. This could have been supplemented with interviews with elites, policymakers, development experts and media activists and general people to learn their perspectives about the covered issues. Experts and policymakers, as also the broader readership keen to gain a better and deeper knowledge and understanding about what needs to be done to advance the cause of Bangladesh’s as well as the South Asian economic development, will be much benefited from this volume.
