Author: Robert Dibie.

This article examines economic development in Indonesia and Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s from a cross-national perspective. Both countries have a bureaucratic-authoritarian regime and large petroleum deposits. While Indonesia has enacted sound economic and agricultural policies, Nigeria has been faced with a poor market-based system of foreign exchange allocation, coup and countercoup, maladministration and poor financial flow to the private sector. The author demonstrates that dynamic economic development and growth can be achieved with pragmatic government policies, political stability and a disciplined, hardworking population that responds to the right incentives. Bibliogr., sum.