The Strategy of Economic Development

"With this book we are now skipping almost 200 years to the middle of the 1950s. Albert Hirschman is a European intellectual who migrated to the United States. This book was written after his wide experience in Latin American policy-making for economic development. The reason I cite this book is that he is one of the early proponents of what in recent years has been revived as the political-economy approach to development. “A great deal of my China-India book deals with political economy in both countries.” Economics has made a big transition. In Adam Smith’s time, and even later on with other classical economists, they were not just interested in economics per se but also in the political basis of economics. But then from around the end of the 19th century for many decades the focus of economics was narrowed down to purely technical economic analysis, leaving aside the political basis of economic decisions and happenings. However, in more recent years the earlier tradition has been revived, of looking at it from the political point of view as well, in order to understand the political background and underpinnings of economic policies. In the last 25 years there has been a great deal of work in development economics in this area, which is also my own area of interest. A great deal of my China-India book deals with political economy in both countries."