Isabelle Tsakok has worked on issues of economic development, particularly for agriculture and rural areas, for more than 25 years, primarily as staff at the World Bank and, since retirement, off and on, as consultant. Her professional activities focus on the policy, institutional and incentive environment for agriculture, agri-business and rural development in open, market-oriented and transition economies. Dr Tsakok's involvement in agricultural policy analysis, program and project formulation and evaluation, and research and training activities has been conducted throughout the developing world, including in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. She is the author of Agricultural Price Policy: A Practitioner's Guide to Partial-Equilibrium Analysis (1990), a manual widely used among development practitioners. Dr Tsakok also developed the policy simulation game EXACTION with Professor Graham Chapman, then at Cambridge University. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

• Summary; Introduction; Part I. The Many Faces of Agricultural Transformation in an Industrializing World and What It Means: 1. The industrialized world: success in agricultural transformation in England, Japan, and the United States of America; 2. The developing world: contribution of agriculture in a country's drive for industrialization and improved well-being for all: A. Countries widely recognized as having been high performers; B. Selected developing countries with substantial but uneven progress towards industrial status and broad-based wealth; C. Review of selected quantitative assessments of the contribution of agriculture to overall growth and poverty reduction; D. Success in agricultural transformation - important for overall development? What we learn from this selective review; Part II. Success in Agricultural Transformation: What Makes It Happen?: 3. Success in agricultural transformation: necessary conditions; 4. Success in agricultural transformation: necessary but not sufficient conditions?; 5. Success in agricultural transformation: missing conditions; 6. Success in agricultural transformation: the public foundations of private agriculture; Annexes. A note on the methodology of research of this book: A.1. Introduction; A.2. Proposed approach using cross country data and case studies; A.3. Popper's methodology of science: refutations of bold conjectures; A.4. Seeking refutations as empirical tests of hypotheses not their confirmations: practical considerations.

'Should developing countries invest in agriculture to spur growth, or tax agriculture to subsidize industry? Tsakok's examination of the fundamental evidence for these canonical economic development strategies results in a volume that is an invaluable reference to anyone making a first venture into development policy. The approach is comprehensive and nuanced, but absent the jargon and meaningless details that often obscure economic policy texts. This may well become the definitive treatment of what are the most important issues in development policy.' David R. Just, Cornell University