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This chapter offers an introduction to two leading Sri Lankan Marxist political economists, S. B. D. de Silva and G. V. S. de Silva. By surveying their most influential writings – the 645-page book The Political Economy of Underdevelopment by S. B. D. de Silva and the pungent essays ‘Heretical Thoughts' and ‘Social Change’ by G. V. S. de Silva – -it traces the distinctive and provocative qualities of these two thinkers, especially concerning problems of development and underdevelopment. In doing so, it is argued that S. B. D. de Silva is best understood as a leading anti-imperialist political economist alongside Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi, distinguished by a classical Marxist focus on class struggle and relations of production in his narration of the ‘colonial mode of production’ in Sri Lanka. As for G. V. S. de Silva's erudite reflections on the trajectories of transition to capitalism and socialism as well as the prospects of social and economic development in countries emerging from pre-capitalist social formations in the wake of colonization, his remarkable attention to spatial questions at multiple scales – between country and city, colony and metropole – receives special attention. The conclusion underlines the sustained relevance of both de Silvas to making sense of the origins of the present crisis in Sri Lanka.

This chapter has briefly discussed the problems of defining development and underdevelopment, and Gustavo Esteva's opinion that ‘underdevelopment’ was invented. The Proposal for Action of the First UN Development Decade (1960–70), Mr Robert S McNamara's view (President of the World Bank in the 1970s) on development, the Western World's Perception of Development, the |Nature of the UN Institution for Socio-Economic Development in Developing Countries, the role of International Trade and Development have been discussed in this chapter.

Ahmet Kuru replies to two important and critical reviews of his book, Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019), in this volume. He explains why he disagrees with certain points in Knut Vikør's and Roel Meijer's reviews. He particularly reiterates the ulema's negative roles in contemporary Muslim societies. From Egypt's Al-Azhar to Turkey's Diyanet, from Iran's mullahs to Pakistan's sharia courts, the ulema hold the power to shape the public discourse in many ways, such as controlling Islamic education, issuing fatwas, and imposing blasphemy laws, in partnership with the state. The ulema have been the main ally of the rulers in marginalizing intellectuals and economic entrepreneurs, and thus, they share the responsibility with the rulers in problems of authoritarianism and underdevelopment.

In contrast to Ahmet Kuru's argument that a critical juncture occurred in the 11th century when a repressive anti-intellectual state-ulema alliance appeared, which destroyed the creative spirit of the previous centuries in Islam, this review argues that the critical juncture must be sought in the modern era with the development of citizenship in the Middle East.

In China, engineering insurance has been questioned as not being beneficial as expected. This paper seeks to further understand how China's engineering insurance industry functions and to provide a macro perspective explanation for engineering insurance's underdevelopment.

Three industrial organization hypotheses were extended to the engineering insurance context: structure conduct performance (SCP), relative market power (RMP) and efficiency structure (ES) hypotheses. This paper employed the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) bootstrap to test the hypotheses using panel data from 2008 to 2017.

The results suggest that the SCP paradigm is validated in China's engineering insurance market, indicating a concentrated market where the welfare of consumers (e.g. owners, contractors and designers) may be eroded. Several factors are identified to have significant impacts on engineering insurers' performance, such as the investment return, percentage of engineering business, the ratio of outstanding claims, the number of large contractors, market rivalry and entry barriers.

Despite the sheer size of China's construction industry and the urgent need to improve risk management, the insurance industry that serves construction firms engineering insurance is underdeveloped. Engineering insurance is yet to be understood from a macro perspective, which may reveal the underlying reasons for engineering insurance's underdevelopment. The industrial organization theories provided a theoretical framework to test the functioning of this specific industry. The disaggregated data (engineering line specific) is employed to ensure effective regulation and policymaking.

This paper aims to examine various indicators related to corruption and determine their impact on financial globalization in emerging countries. It will consider other factors that may impact financial globalization and focus on how corruption within political, executive and public sector institutions can affect this process.

This paper uses a generalized method of moments (GMM) for a data sample of emerging countries covering 2000–2020. Corruption measurements are derived from the varieties of democracy data sets and Transparency International. It also includes data on foreign direct investment, portfolio flows, foreign exchange and international debt as separate indicators of financial globalization. These measures provide more detailed information on the types of financial transactions occurring across countries.

The results reveal that foreign investors may be less likely to enter certain sectors of the economy due to concerns about unethical practices and difficulties navigating the regulatory landscape in countries with high levels of corruption. This can lead to underdevelopment in sectors that are attractive to foreign investment and a reliance on a narrow range of sectors.

This paper offers valuable insights by integrating corruption and financial globalization indicators, using the GMM for robust analysis. It highlights how corruption influences foreign investment decisions, potentially leading to sectoral underdevelopment and overreliance in emerging countries.

This paper introduces a hitherto unpublished 1970 paper written by Lauchlin Currie (1902–1993) on Paul Rosenstein Rodan’s famous 1943 paper on the “Big Push” which led to the balanced-unbalanced growth debate to which Albert Hirschman (1915–2012) was an important contributor. Both Currie and Hirschman had been key economic advisers to the Colombian government, and their respective views on development planning are contrasted. In particular, it is shown how Currie’s 1970 paper illuminates the theory behind the 1971–1974 national plan for Colombia that he prepared and helped deliver; and how the related institutional innovations have had an enduring impact on Colombia’s recent economic history.

Political Science in the United States has focused too much on variable-oriented, quantitative methods and thus lost its ability to ask “big questions.” Stein Rokkan (d. 1979) was an eminent comparativist who asked big questions and provided such qualitative tools as conceptual maps, grids, and clustered comparisons. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), arguably the first social scientist, also asked big questions and provided a universal explanation about the dialectical relationship between nomads and sedentary people. This article analyzes to what extent Ibn Khaldun's concepts of asabiyya and sedentary culture help understand the rise and fall of the Muslim civilization. It also explores my alternative, class-based perspective in Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment. Moreover, the article explores how Rokkan's analysis of cultural, geographical, economic, and religio-political variations within Western European states can provide insights to the examination of such variations in the Muslim world.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the political economy of financial development in Ethiopia, specifically, to test the empirical relevance of the interest group theory of financial development in the context of Ethiopia.

The autoregressive distributive lag model to co-integration is applied to Ethiopia’s time series data from 1990 to 2020 to identify the long- and short-run effects of the political regime characteristics on financial development of the country.

The findings reveal that the degree of democracy in the political system (a proxy for narrow elites) was found to have a significant positive effect on financial development in the long run but has negatively affected financial development in the short run. Similarly, the political regime durability indicator shows a positive and statistically significant effect both in the long run and short run. The macroeconomic policy indicators which are used as control variables in this study reveal significant effects on the financial development of Ethiopia. Generally, the finding supports the interest group theory of financial development.

This paper is the original work on the effect of political regime characteristics on financial development in Ethiopia. Thus, it brings substantial value to studying determinants of financial development as it goes beyond the conventional determinants by considering the role of political power in the process of financial development.

Social determinants of stressful events (SE) play an important role in justifying the cause of inequality in the experience of SE. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants that impact on inequality in the experience of SE.

The statistical population of this study includes all residents of Tehran. The statistical sample was 5,895 people who were selected by multistage cluster method and were proportional to the population size. The research tool is a researcher-made questionnaire designed to measure SE in Tehran, which includes 11 psychological stressors. The Oaxaca–Blinder decomposing method was used to analyze data.

In a total of 11 psychological SE, in 6 of those events, there was significant inequality in the experience of SE. Concentration Index (CI) of political SE is (CI = −0.27, 95% CI: −0.47, −0.07) and in favor of the rich (pro-rich). Education (OR = 1.60) in poor group and region development in poor and rich (respectively in all of the following) (OR = 0.42–0.73) are the main determinants of inequality in this stressor. CI of neighborhood underdevelopment SE is (CI = −0.47, 95% CI: 0.66, −0.28) and pro-rich. Education (OR = 1.26–1.27) and region development (OR = 1.18–2.24) are the main determinants of inequality in this stressor. CI of livelihood problems SE is (CI = −0.58, 95% CI: 0.68, −0.32) and pro-rich. Education (OR = 1.40) and health status (OR = 1.63) in poor group are the main determinants of inequality in this stressor. CI of future uncertainty SE is (CI = −0.12, 95% CI: 0.34, −0.08) and pro-rich. Gender (OR = 1.22) in poor group and region development (OR = 0.24–0.58) are the main determinants of inequality in this stressor. CI of education problems (CI = 0.19, 95% CI: 0.05, 0.32) and pro-poor. Age (OR = 0.32–0.34) and education (OR = 3.65–3.30) are the main determinants of inequality in this stressor. CI of housing problems is (CI = −0.29, 95% CI: −0.49, −0.08) and pro-rich. Education (OR = 1.31) and region development (OR = 1.64) in poor group are the main determinants of inequality in this stressor.

The first limitation is related to the level of data analysis, and the second limitation is the lack of comprehensive data on social determinants.

Social determinants affecting the formation of inequality in the experience of SE. Some social determinants, such as the level of education and development of the region, play a more prominent role in justifying inequality in the experience of stress between rich and poor groups.

Inequality in the experience of SE is a serious threat to mental and social health. One of the ways to reduce the experience of psychological and social stress is to pay attention to social determinants that play a role in the formation of stress.

This original paper was conducted by examining the effect of social determinants on the formation of inequality in the experience of stress, which draws the serious attention of policymakers.