Government and Inefficiency in the Haitian Economy: The Nineteenth Century Legacy

For these reasons, among others, most governments in less developed countries have decided not to rely exclusively on spontaneous market forces for br inging abou t economic deve lopment . P lans , in te rven t ions , and regulations of different kinds play a prominent role in most development efforts. 'It is assumed by all that it is the state that must be responsible both for initiating the overall plan and seeing that it is carried out,' wrote Gunnar Myrdal in the mid-1950s,2 and much the same view prevails today.