Early Development Economics Debates Revisited
Development economics in its early years created the image of a fierce fight between advocates of contrasting theories or approaches- "balanced growth" vs. "unbalanced growth" or "program loans" vs. "project loans...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2007/12/8880119/early-development-economics-debates-revisited http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7565 |
| Summary: | Development economics in its early years
created the image of a fierce fight between advocates of
contrasting theories or approaches- "balanced
growth" vs. "unbalanced growth" or
"program loans" vs. "project loans."
This view has the merit to highlight such conflicts in great
detail; yet it fails to take into account the reality of
development economics as it was practiced in the field. This
paper reassesses these old conflicts by complementing the
traditional focus on theoretical debates with an emphasis on
the practice of development economics.A particularly
interesting example is the debate between Albert Hirschman,
one of the fathers of the "unbalanced growth"
approach, and Lauchlin Currie, among the advocates of
"balanced growth" on how to foster iron production
in Colombia in the 1950s. An analysis of the positions held
by these two economists shows that they were in fact much
less antithetical than is usually held and, indeed, were in
some fundamental aspects surprisingly similar. Debates among
development economists during the 1950s thus must be
explained-at least partially-as the natural dynamics of an
emerging discipline that took shape when different groups
tried to achieve supremacy-or at least legitimacy-through
the creation of mutually delegitimizing systemic theories. |
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