Describes a situation in which public policy fails due to the high political price of necessary reforms within a competitive democracy. Argues that Jamaica's competitive democratic system has given rise to, and fostered, a number of negative features: a large and inefficient public sector, budget deficits, inflation, and balance-of-payments disequilibria. As a result, large-scale, allocative inefficiencies and low rates of growth have (1) contributed to endemic poverty and (2) perpetual inequality in the relative distribution of income (as well as social benefits) between the informal, largely rural poor on the one hand, and the formal, largely urban, middle to upper classes on the other.

3/7/00 M2LMGR