Development economics at a crossroads: introduction to a policy arena

This introduction reviews some of the issues and controversies within development economics over the last half century. Particular attention is given to the status of development economics as a sub-discipline of economics and to the relationship between theoretical and empirical contributions. There is a focus on the controversies which exist within the economics profession over some very important theoretical and empirical issues relating to the analysis of the economies of developing countries and their interaction with the international economy. A critical discussion of the proposition that ‘development economics’ is actually little more than ‘the economics of developing countries’ raises the questions of the nature of development economics and whether it is at a ‘crossroads’. The introduction concludes with brief overviews of the five articles which follow and some reflections on the future of development economics.