Institutionalized obstacles to development: The case of Egypt

Slow economic development in Egypt and other developing countries results from an institutionalized behavior pattern based on Indecision, Procrastination, and Indifference (IPI). The IPI behavior, given the socioeconomic and political environment, results in frustrated or lack of entrepreneurship, low incentives, low productivity, low incomes, low savings, and hence slow development. Five major institutions help to breed, sustain, and perpetuate the IPI behavior pattern; these are religion, family structure, land tenure, education, and government. The costs and benefits of IPI are distributed differentially among economic classes in a way that helps to maintain the status quo, and change will come primarily by a change in the distribution of benefits or the class structure. The model is illustrated by reference to both private and public sectors.