Advanced as well as developing countries lack 

 adequate knowledge of how to harness the 

 potentials of industrialization to the 

 objectives of efficiency and equity: 

 efficiency in the economic sense of the best 

 use of the nation* s (and world* s) resources, 

 and equity in the sense of an acceptable 

 sharing of the benefits of growth and in the 

 process of decisionmaking and implementation 

 of industrialization itself.... 



. . .[S ]ustained effort is needed to enable 

 governmental agencies, financial institutions, 

 and companies to determine the workable and 

 acceptable criteria for selection of industry 

 and to develop methodologies and information 

 for applying those criteria. New depths of 

 analysis are needed to help countries and 

 enterprises understand the alternative 

 benefit-costs of different industries or 

 industrialization routes and to clarify the 

 time phasing of the processes of selection and 

 implementation. These analyses, clarifying 

 the nature and magnitude of gaps between 

 social and private benefit-costs in different 

 industries, would assist national and 

 inter natonal agencies in devising more 

 effective policy instruments to guide industry 

 in investment and adjustment decisions. 



Constraints on the level and quality of present 

 research on the industrialization process include: 

 lack of consensus (or understanding) of what the 

 critical problems are as well as their priority, 

 shortages of qualified individuals to do the research, 

 shortages of research funds, and lack of coordination 

 among individuals and institutions doing research that 

 is itself often too f ractionalized to contribute to 

 policy and investment decisions. Not all of these 

 constraints can be overcome simply by allocating 

 additional resources to the research effort. 

 Nonetheless, additional resources would help. 



Beyond the need for resources lies the need for 

 research that will have high credibility for all users 

 in a field in which controversy prevails. Research 

 directly supported by any single national government 

 may imply bias or undue influence. Thus it is 

 important that U.S. government support for research on 

 the industrialization process be merged with that of 

 other nations, the private sector, and foundations so 

 as to enhance credibility of the research results. 

 With this in mind, we suggest the following options: 



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