Modern Development Theory

Abstract

It is generally agreed that the beginnings of modern Development Economics were formulated in England during World War II.1 Numerous studies undertaken after the War in response to a variety of historical circumstances led to a fairly high degree of consensus among a majority of development economists with the result that by the end of the 1950s or the early 1960s, something like a mainstream theory of Economic Development had emerged. I do not wish to imply that there was unanimity on all the issues; but rather that there was a set of propositions which would have received broad support — and above all — a common logic of approach which is usually classified as ‘structuralist’, and, in any case, is non-neoclassical in development matters2 with a strong normative orientation. Important contributions had come from certain developing countries, particularly India and some in Latin America.