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This paper examines why some sets of people choose an informal way to acquire land. It also examines challenges and drivers within indigenous communities in South-western Nigeria. Policy recommendations were proposed for formalization. What precisely are the contextual reasons that can be established empirically for the prevailing extra-legal practices in the developing land market? What are the challenges, and how can the informal land market be graduated into the formal system?

It begins with identifying the contextual features, drivers and challenges of the informal land market through a combination of literature synthesis and a pilot survey. Subsequently, copies of questionnaires were developed, tested and distributed to the critical actors in the informal land market. Lastly, a structured interview was conducted to elicit possible solutions from key actors (both formal and informal stakeholders). Data were analyzed using descriptive, inferential statistics and computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS, Atlas. ti).

The absence of administrative bureaucracy was the predominant characteristic of the informal urban land market, while household income is the strongest predictor of the informal land market drivers. Informal documentation of transactions is also one of the most severe challenges in the informal urban land market. Consensus between statutory and customary institutions and other 15 governance-related recommendations is proposed to confirm informality to formality.

The paper's outcome will provide a rational guide to landowners, land administrators and other stakeholders on relevant information needed to develop a viable and healthy urban and rural land market.

In discussions of economic development, industrial dualism is often ignored. Industry, or the modern sector, in developing countries is composed of an overregulated formal sector and a free‐entry informal sector. Because of the nature of the regulations we can, in general, identify the formal sector with large industry and the informal sector with small industry. The informal modern sector is often a dynamic actor in the process of economic development, frequently outpacing the growth of the formal modern sector. We investigate in a general equilibrium model the conditions under which the informal sector increases its capital stock more rapidly than the formal sector. We also look at the employment‐unemployment effects of industrial dualism.

Argues for a stricter compliance with Gandhian economics to promote more effective economic development in India and other developing countries. Copying Western economic practices has not helped India. The application of the more socialist Gandhian principles would produce a more even standard of living for all ‐ no one would want for the basic necessities.

Investigates two issues raised by D.C. Moore: the apparent failure of critical accounting theory to launch and sustain a critical programme and relative lack of critical accounting activity in the USA. These concerns are related in that radicalization and change of one′s own academic discipline would seem to be one of the highest‐priority political activities to be undertaken by critical theorists. Offers feminist economics as an example of a critical social theory that meets Moore′s four criteria for successful criteria endeavour and is applicable to accounting research. Compares the feminist economic critique with critiques of accounting by Cooper, and by Shearer and Arrington, based on the French feminist philosophers. The two approaches differ in goals and politics. Suggests that the experience of feminist economics in reforming economics also provides insights into the slow growth of critical accounting theory in the USA.

This paper makes the first attempt to provide a new analytical framework for research on the evolution of China's corporate governance models. The purpose of this paper is to investigate developmental corporate governance mechanisms in China the over past decades from a synthetic and dynamic analytical viewpoint.

This is a conceptual paper.

The evolution of corporate governance from an administrative to an economic model in China was not a smooth process and was confronted with various unavoidable institutional and ideological obstacles. Consequently, the transition of governance models has demonstrated the following four salient characteristics: gradualism, dualism, systematization and path dependency.

This paper makes the first attempt to provide a new analytical framework for research on the evolution of China's corporate governance models.

In this contribution to the increasing literature on the international division of labour and the New International Economic Order (NIEO) we wish to concentrate on some of the labour aspects of socio‐economic growth. This will be approached in the first section by considering socio‐economic growth as one aspect of the socio‐economic system outlined previously but here slightly expanded conceptually: in section two we briefly examine the ideas of the NIEO; and in the final section we consider some of the labour aspects of the NIEO.

The rate of urbanization and its implications in post‐Mao China have been underestimated in most recent studies on China’s urbanization as they have excluded the rising urban floating population. Making use of recently available floating population survey data assesses the significance of China’s urban floating population and its socio‐economic consequences and suggests remedial measures to control its flow. Finds that the floating population caused China to experience one of the highest urban population growths among the developing countries. The floating population has increased rural‐urban labour mobility and helped to eliminate the dualistic nature of Chinese society. But it has also caused oveer‐urbanization and environmental pollution and created certain social problems. To control the flow of the urban floating population, argues that the government should increasingly rely on indirect market‐based control mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the narrative that the informal economy in Africa has no place within the framework of economic development. Considered as a sign of “backwardness”, “traditionalism” and “underdevelopment”, the informal economy in Africa has persistently grown notwithstanding Africa’s economic destabilisation through the adoption of neo-liberal economic interventions and free-market policies. This paper argues that the informal economy cannot be marginalised at the fringes of economic development, in the construction of a holistic development pathway.

The methodological basis is discourse analysis.

The outcome is a call to re-think and open up the feasibility, and possibilities for, alternative economic futures beyond free-market capitalism.

This paper makes a critical consideration on one of the multiple narratives that continue to inform economic policy making in Africa, by contesting and deconstructing its basis in order to encourage a pluralistic approach and understanding.

We investigate the convergence of Chinese real GDP per capita at regional and provincial levels, looking separately at the sub‐periods before and after major economic reforms and paying attention to the possibility of structural breaks induced by the ‘Great Leap Forward’. At the regional level we reject convergence pre‐ and post‐reform. At the provincial level we find evidence of a common regional trend for the Eastern region and again for the Central region, but not for the Western region. We conclude that, contrary to the policy objectives of the Chinese government, the regions of China have not shared a common development path.

Development ethics is an important topic which is often neglected in development studies. The purpose of the paper is to analyze international development in an ethical‐based context using the approach of development ethics.

The analysis is mainly based on the pioneering work of the prominent development ethicists and the founder of development ethics as self‐conscious area – Denis Goulet – along with recent development ethics literature. In this context, international development is approached under a holistic ethical manner.

Development ethicists reduce the gap between a conventional perspective of development and the real needs of humankind. In contrast to mainstream economics view, for development ethics the true indicator of development is not growth in a narrow sense of material expansion of wellbeing, but the qualitative enrichment of human beings in all relevant aspects of human life. International development is preserved as an effort to a better life for individuals and to a good global society for nations.

If research is reported on in the paper, this section must be completed and should include suggestions for future research and any identified limitations in the research process.

The proposed ethical goals and strategies are normative judgments which provide both the notional and practical framework within which international development should be discussed and policy recommendations could be formulated.

The notion of development is redefined on ethical foundations. A conceptual typology of the development ethics goals and strategies to international development is offered. The paper can be perceived as a point of departure that scholars and students of international development and development economics in broad, from both perspectives (orthodox and heterodox), can be incorporated with ethical matters to international development and benefit from it.