The evolution of development economics and globalization

The legacy of the last 50 years of development economics is not very inspiring. In the 1960s and 1970s, instead of looking at the real causes and viable solutions to poverty and underdevelopment, development economics was preoccupied with the politically‐charged debate over the superiority of either state‐controlled or market systems. In the 1980s and 1990s, economists expected that globalization would come to be a panacea for all developing countries. They advocated the abandonment of traditional industries and occupations and their replacement by modern sectors modelled after or imported from the developed countries. Such policies have generally failed with few exceptions–those being countries which chose to implement their own specific policies of development. These countries skillfully combined government interventionism with market system incentives. Despite its past problems, development economics has recently evolved to better reflect the realities of developing countries. For the first time, development economics is on the verge of becoming a real social science in which analysis of traditional institutions, community life, and religious and ethnic factors is not only important but decisive in developing new social and economic growth objectives and economic policies.