Thinking Aloud: Volume V, Issue 11: April 2019

The April 2019 issue of Thinking Aloud focuses on “The challenges of inclusive growth”. The first page article titled “Hiccups of Bangladesh Development Surprise” offers some reasonable explanations to the so-called ‘Bangladesh development surprise’ or ‘Bangladesh paradox’ and argues that, without significant improvements in the quality of institutions, such ‘surprise’ will continue to lead to periodic ‘hiccups’ like the accidents in the RMG sector (several fire incidents, Rana Plaza incident of factory collapse); frequent road accidents; frequent fire incidents in the residential and commercial areas; repeated scams in the financial sector; serious environmental degradation in cities, rivers and forest areas; periodic labour unrest; uncontrolled scams in public examinations; social disintegration among youth in the forms of extremism and drugs; etc. The second and third pages of this issue present four articles. The article on “Will Bangladesh be able to sustain the current rate of growth if the inequality continues to rise?” highlights that the nature of economic growth for Bangladesh has been inequality enhancing and to sustain the current growth rate, there is no other choice but to reduce inequality. The article on “Challenges facing the RMG sector in Bangladesh” explores the challenges of the RMG sector in Bangladesh and emphasizes that the sector can overcome the current challenges by focusing on inclusive growth. The article on “Inclusive growth and environmental quality: upcoming challenges for Bangladesh” argues that in most cases, the environmental quality cannot be reversed overnight, as an action like that will cost an insurmountable amount without any immediate effect. The article on “Why does institutional quality matter for inclusive development and growth in Bangladesh?” stresses that increased emphasis is required to further understand the linkage between institution and development in the context of Bangladesh. The fourth page covers the events that took place in the month of March.