The collapse of command economies in the Second World, and the monopoly of structural adjustment as prescribed development policy for the Third World, have thrust incentives to the center of debates about economic policy. As one political economist declares, “Few economists today would dispute...

For the World Bank the “achievement of sustained and equitable development remains the greatest challenge facing the human race.” But equitable development has not been achieved. We must not, therefore, merely sustain the kind of development we already have.

Globalization, says a recent study, “is in danger of becoming, if it has not already become, the cliche of our times: the big idea which encompasses everything from global financial markets to the Internet but which delivers little substantive insight into the contemporary human condition.”...