Whither Development Economics? Suggestions for a new type of Development Economics in the light of China's experience

摘要

More than 50 years have elapsed since the publication of my doctoral dissertation in Harvard University Press in 1949: Agriculture and Industrialization. I returned from the United States to my motherland in early 1946 after finishing my graduate studies at Harvard. Although severed from my Western counterparts since then, I never lost my interest in the trend of world economic development at large. As most of us are aware, immediately after the World War II there was a crop of economic literature dealing with development of the developing countries which had just shattered their colonial yoke and were striving for economic independence and prosperity. Many theoretical models were offered by economists from international organizations and donor nations, such as the Linear-Stages Theory, Structural Change Models, the International-Dependence Revolution, and the Neoclassical Counter-Revolution, and policy recommendations based on these models were actually adopted and put into practice during the 1950 and 1960s. But unfortunately on the whole their efforts proved disappointing; for apart from a few successful examples of NICS such as the four Asian Tigers, the vast majority of developing countries remained poor. Thus towards the end of 1970 and 1980s the development profession seemed exhausted of its original vehemence. As some economists said, it is on the "decline and fall," or it has entered into a stage of "diminishing returns,' and even "heading towards a total demise."