Summary and Conclusions

Abstract

E conomic development is a complex and interactive process, difficult enough to accomplish under the best of circumstances. Witness to this is the track record of the five decades that have elapsed since the United Nations, with great enthusiasm and optimism, declared the 1960s the first “development decade.” Fifty years later, despite the promises of countless politicians, the earnest and not-so-earnest advice of many economists, and the United Nations’ enthusiastic declaration of development decade after development decade, the gulf between the material standard of living of those in the more developed and less developed countries had not been dramatically diminished. To be sure there have been some striking (typically partial) success stories, such as those that chronicle the spectacular improvement in the material well-being of a substantial part (though far from all) of the huge populations of China and India over the past two to three decades. But even in the “successful” cases, far too many have been left behind. And against these, there are all too many cases that must be rated as development failures.