The Evolution of Development Perspectives
The study below is a review of different articles and the evolution of development perspectives. The study reviews the work of different authors and their perceptions about the evolution of development. A brief summary of the developed economic models has also been included, as most journals have mentioned these theories in their reviews.
Development has come a long way over the last sixty years as both a scholarly discipline and as an enterprise. It became very significant after the Second World War and was considered the same as industrialization. Its objective was very clear: to raise incomes and offer goods and services to poor people, who couldn’t have access to them before (Rapely, 2007, p. 1). Evolution can be defined as the self-transformation of a system under study (Witt, 2002, p. 9). Six decades ago, depression and political developments had made first world countries rely on Keynesian models in political and economic circles. This further influenced third world countries whose confidence was supported by the emergence of structural economics in a bid to enter the industrial age.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, those involved with development studies tried to answer the question relating to what it means for the economy to be developed. In a bid to answer this question, many economic models were developed to explain this phenomenon (Onyeka, 2014). These development theories mainly focused on analysing the social-economic phenomenon of development, and they offered opportunities for development strategies (Mallick, 2005, p. 4). The 1960’s was a period of widespread optimistic belief in development and modernization (Knutsson, 2009, p. 8). In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the field of development economics, which had been neglected for quite some time was soon rediscovered. The available economic models did not offer enough practical solutions to this so-called Third World (Ranis, 2004, p. 1). These models, at first, seemed to spur economic growth in Third world as demand for their products rose over the years (Rapely, 2007, p. 3). Problems with these strategies were soon discovered after it became clear that these economies were growing slower than expected, and the development consumed more resources than it produced. With time Keynesianism declined, and the momentum gained by development economics did so. Marxist and structuralism approaches also produced their theories of economic development and had their projections about the problems that affect underdevelopment (Arjona & Vazquez, 2007, p. 1).
Despite the difference in these theories, some similarities have been noted when it comes to analysing development issues from a macro perspective. All these approaches study past failures and factors from evolutionary tradition, so as to get a better understanding of economic growth and development (Arjona & Vazquez, 2007, p. 3). Ranis (2004) observes that one tradition that is common in growth economics is the ‘root’ in macroeconomics. The aspect of macroeconomics is majorly derived from the Neoclassical theory, which claims that the main problem in the third world was the state itself, and this could only be changed if the state was rolled back (Rapely, 2007, p. 3). The main view of neoclassical economics is that people respond to incentives. Understanding these incentives guides governments on what to do (Rodrik, 2011, p. 227)
According to stages of growth by Walt Rostow, developing countries normally follow a certain path (Rostow, 1959). The first stage, agriculture is the main industry and most of the population mainly engages in agricultural production, while their governments have wide -spread power. In this stage, climatic change plays a huge role in the development of the country. In the second stage, there is advancement in the agricultural sector, and there is an increase in trade
