Development and Underdevelopment

Current academic interest in development economics, and the study of development economics as a separate subject, are relatively recent phenomena. For the student today it will be difficult to appreciate that as recently as thirty years ago a course in development economics was a rare feature of an undergraduate programme in economics, and that textbooks on economic development were few and far between. Today no self-respecting department of economics is without a course in economic development; there are scores of texts; hundreds of case studies; and thousands of articles on the subject. And, as in medicine, the perceived ills seem to multiply as the diagnosis deepens.