The History of Development Economics and Its Policy Implications : A Bird's Eye View

This short paper was written as a contribution to an ESHET roundtable about the links between the history of economic thought and economic policies. The history of the field of development economics illustrates, by its very nature as an essentially applied discipline, how ideas and policies about development have changed over time. Such links are discussed by briefly examining classical political economy, the post-war emergence of development economics (with its notions of poverty trap, import substitution industrialization and economic dualism), the persistent influence of F. List’s nationalist approach, the policy rules of the “Washington Consensus”, and the distinct development policy design through randomized experiments. The concluding section reflects about some aspects of the role of the study of the history of development economics for the formulation of policies