ABSTRACT
The background to this chapter is of special interest. In the sixties and early seventies UN Committee for Development Planning, chaired by Jan Tinbergen, held an optimistic view about governments playing prominent roles in promoting development. The view was criticised by Gunnar Myrdal who saw government in the development context as ‘soft state’, with powerful landowners obstructing development. 1 Appreciating the views of Myrdal, when Tinbergen was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969, he devoted the award proceeds to fund research on agrarian reform. The funded research culminated in a book on the modelling of agrarian structures and agrarian reform, and several published articles. 2
