A volume of essays by a number of economists to honour Nurul Islam, an Asian economist who made important contributions as an academic economist and political planner. The essays fall under three subject headings - international trade and aid, planning and rural development.

Part 1 Trade and aid: parabolic welfare functions and development assistance, Jan Tinbergen; cost of directly unproductive profit-seeking and rent-seeking activities - some conceptual issues, Jagdish N.Bhagwati; on some unresolved issues in optimum tariff theory, Wahidul Haque; comparative advantage and free trade, Paul Streeten; the governance gap, Just Faaland and Jack Parkinson. Part 3 Planning and development: participatory development - some perspectives from grassroots experiences, Dharam Ghai; the changing role of economic planning in Japan, Saburo Okita; project evaluation as an aid to planning - how successful has the innovation been?, Azizur Rahman Khan. Part 4 Rural Development: a view of rural development - 1980's vintage, or why some of the emperor's clothes and his rice should be made at home, Gustav Ranis; poverty and development - propects and priorities for the 1990s, John W.Mellor; some reflections on Bangladesh development - looking backward to the future, Mark W.Leiserson; foodgrain pricing policy in Bangladesh - procurement, sales, imports and public stocks, Abu A. Abdullah; returns from education in rural Bangladesh, Mahabub Hossain. Part 5 In lieu of a conclusion - a personal reminisence: economics comes of age in a developing country - the case of Bangladesh, Austin Robinson.