Development economics: from the traditional approaches to the new concepts

Abstract

Development economics centres its analysis on the specific problems of less developed countries. Its main goal is to find answers to the following question: 'how can low-income economies in the world today be set on the track to sustained economic development for the immediate goal of reducing poverty and the long-run goal of catching up on the wealth of developed economies?' (Hayami and Godo, 2005: 2 [1]). Many answers to this fundamental question have been presented. We survey the central elements that characterize four important theoretical approaches in Development Economics, namely : (i) modernization theories; (ii) dependency theories ; (iii) world-system theory; (iv) neoclassical counter-revolution. However, the "old" notion of economic development, which considers as its main goal the reduction of inequality in terms of per capita income, seems to be insufficient to cover the amplitude and complexity of development problems. Therefore, it is not surprising that the notion of development has been expanded through the consideration of new dimensions, with the adding of many adjectives to the word "development" - "human", " local" and "sustainable" development being the most frequently mentioned. The main objective of this paper is to produce a concise survey of this range of contributions frequently analyzed separately. Together with the contributions of traditional development economics, these new development concepts - human, local and sustainable offer a theoretical wealth which, in their globality, allow a more appropriate understanding of the complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon of development.