Poverty traps occurs when agents fail to coordinate their actions to achieve the optimal allocation of resources. It is argued that this phenomenon makes economic convergence impossible and keeps agents in a poverty trap from which they cannot escape unless a massive and coordinated industrial policy is implemented. This analysis shows that the literature on coordination failures has overemphasized the significance of market failure. It argues that coordination is possible and profitable in a free market system. State intervention is responsible for the systematic misallocation of resources (discoordination), in general, and for poverty traps in particular.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
5757.
Find related papers by JEL classification: O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development P5 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems F5 - International Economics - - International Relations and International Political Economy
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