Development economics

Development economics or development economics refers to the part of economics that deals with developmental differences of individual economies. The main focus is on developing countries, economic reasons for their under-development ( developmental theory ) and recommendations for development policy.

The definition of development is discontinuing typically of pure economic indicators ( such as national income, growth, distribution) and also takes into account socio -economic factors such as illiteracy, infant mortality and educational level.

The reasons for economic underdevelopment distinction is made between endogenous ( within the country lying ) and exogenous ( externally determined) reasons.

Development economics is divided into macroeconomic and microeconomic analysis. While the macroeconomic point of view concerned with long-term economic growth, the microeconomic perspective treated incentive problems at the level of individual households and businesses.

Development economics also deals with institutional issues, such as according to the functions of the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund). One specific issue are failed states (Failed States) to overcome the causes of their failure and approaches the situations.

Important representatives

Important representatives, ordered by the year of their most important contribution to development economics are:

• Paul Rosenstein - Rodan (1902-1985): His Study Problems of the Industrialization of Eastern and South- Eastern Europe in 1943 was the development economists Hans -Heinrich Bass believes that " probably the first work of the subdiscipline of development economics in general." Rosenstein - Rodan defended the thesis that the complementarity of industries and the possibility of economies of scale a development strategy state- induced, large-scale industrialization ( big push in Rosenstein - Rodan's diction of 1957) required, coupled with long-term oriented state planning. Rosenstein - Rodan was therefore a representative of the development of economic strategy of balanced growth ( Balanced Growth ).
• Raúl Prebisch (1901-1986): The Prebisch of Argentina's in 1949 ( Spanish) and 1950 ( English) published journal The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems ( and Hans Singer's Postwar Price Relation Between Underdeveloped and Industrialized Countries) argued that it came in world trade to a secular deterioration in the terms of trade of developing countries ( Prebisch -Singer thesis ).
• Ragnar Nurkse (1907-1959): His handwriting Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries from 1953 introduced the concept of the vicious circle of poverty as a cause of economic backwardness in the center of the analysis. To overcome structural poverty Nurkse argued also for the concepts of big- push industrialization and balanced growth ( Balanced Growth ).
• Sir William Arthur Lewis (1915-1991): The Briton described in an article published in 1954, Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour model a dual economy. He referred to the duality of the market in developing countries between a traditional agricultural sector and a modern industrial sector ( Lewis model). Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.
• Walt Whitman Rostow (1916-2003): The U.S. economist supplied with the book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Noncommunist Manifesto of 1960 to contribute to the modernization theory.

Contemporary representatives of development economics are (in alphabetical order):

• Irma Adelman (born 1930), Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984, developed in her essay Beyond Export -Led Growth Strategy began as a demand of agriculture ( catch-up ) Industrialization ( agricultural -demand led industrialization ).
• Daron Acemoğlu, Professor of Applied Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, refers to poor institutional framework as a main reason for the differences in the level of economic development between various former colonies.
• Kaushik Basu, Indian economist at Cornell University and editor of the Oxford companion to economics in India, complained inter alia, the retreat of democracy as a result of globalization.
• Chang Ha - joon, South Koreans, since 2005 as a Reader in the Political Economy of Developmentan Cambridge University, has published several books on the development policy, including: Kicking away the ladder. Policies and institutions for economic development in historical perspective (2002), that the Gunnar Myrdal Prize was awarded in 2005. He argues that for a limited time to protect the development of an underdeveloped country protectionist measures may be justified.
• Robert Kappel ( born 1946 ), former President of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Leibniz Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA ), dealt with the growth condition for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs ) in developing countries.
• Dani Rodrik, a Turkish economist and professor at Harvard University, is a prominent critic of free trade.
• Jeffrey D. Sachs, American economist and since 2002 special adviser to the Millennium Development Goals, is committed to extensive debt relief for extremely poor countries and in the fight against diseases, especially HIV / AIDS in developing countries.
• Amartya Sen ( born 1933 ), Indian economist and economic philosopher, professor of economics at Harvard University, Nobel Prize in Economics, is concerned with the issues of poverty and issues of welfare economics. Was instrumental in the development of the Human Development Index and related indicators. His work " Poverty and Famines. An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation "was released in 1982. Sen was with the book Economics for humans. Ways to justice and solidarity in the market economy, in which he sets out generally understood the concept of the Capability Approaches ( the realization opportunities ), also known to a wider audience.
• Hernando de Soto (born 1941), Peruvian economist, deals primarily with issues of the informal economic sector. His most important work is published in 1986 under the title El otro sendero.
• Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for African Economies at Oxford University, before that Head of the Research Department of the World Bank, wrote the book The Bottom Billion. Why the poorest countries are failing and what we can do about it ( Federal Centre for Political Education, Bonn 2008).
• Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist, Nobel Prize in Economics, is made in various journals, including: Globalization and the opportunities of globalization with the problems of globalization apart and calls for a global social contract.
• Erik Thorbecke ( born 1929), developer of the Social Accounting Matrix and the Foster - Greer - Thorbecke formula
• Michael Todaro, American economist, author of probably the most widely used textbook on Development Economics ( Economic Development ), in particular explored the causes of migration, which he formulated in a dynamic model (Harris - Todaro model).
• Karl Wohlmuth ( born 1942 ), Austrian economists, concerned with the conditions for innovation in the process of catch-up economic development.