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Economic Development: Facts, Theories and Evidence

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Economic Development in the Twenty-first Century

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History ((PEHS))

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Abstract

Ocran provides a comprehensive but succinct review of the evolution of economic thought regarding the notion of human progress, antecedent of the very idea of economic development in contemporary times. He sets the scene for the discussion on economic development by discussing the salient stylised facts about economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The discussion reviews Adam Smith, Karl Marx and other classical economists’ view on development. He follows up with the review of neoclassical growth theories: exogenous and endogenous variants. Ocran also discusses other mainstream and heterodox theories that purport to remedy the flaws inherent in the dominant neoclassical approach. He discusses the old and new institutional economics ideas and coordination failure. Ocran also examines variants of the dependency, modernisation and world-systems approaches. He ends the review by pointing out that none of the ideas thus far in itself provides a complete theory that offers a silver bullet for addressing meaningfully Africa’s development challenges.

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  1. Department of Economics, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

    Matthew Kofi Ocran

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Ocran, M. (2019). Economic Development: Facts, Theories and Evidence. In: Economic Development in the Twenty-first Century. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10770-3_2

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