ABSTRACT
There has been a dramatic change in policy stance in virtually all developing countries over the last twenty years. At the end of the 1970s nearly all had a sub-stantial degree of state intervention in the economy. Swedish aid was to an extent focused on some countries – Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Vietnam who had gone furthest in their attempts to establish a centrally planned economy. Today all these countries have introduced market-based economic reforms; the number of countries retaining Marxist-inspired central planning can be counted on one hand (Cuba, Burma and North Korea). What has been the nature of these policy changes and what have been their effects?
