From Colonial Economics to Development Economics

More than two centuries after Smith’s Wealth of Nations, economists still inquire why the whole world is not developed. As earlier chapters have indicated, their analyses have evolved through various phases. The early period of development economics from approximately 1945–60 provides an especially significant phase. This chapter concentrates on those early days of transition from “colonial economics” to “development economics” when economists began to analyze more rigorously the problems of the latecomers to development.