Pioneers in Development

Book excerpt: "It is a rare treat to read the reminiscences of [this] group of development economists....We can be grateful to the World Bank for bringing these intellectual giants together to present their retrospective views..."--Choice The pioneers in development economics--Lord Bauer, Colin Clark, Albert O. Hirschman, Sir Arthur Lewis, Gunnar Myrdal Raul Prebisch, Paul N. Rosenstein-Rodan, W.W. Rostow, H.W. Singer, and Jan Tinbergen--offer a retrospective view of the formative decade after World War II when they made their seminal contributions to the subject. In individual papers, the pioneers recapture the intellectual excitement, expectations, and activism of that period and provide rare autobiographical detail and insight into why they said what they did and what they now think about the state of development thought and policy. Commentary is provided by economists of the succeeding generation, who reappraise their ideas with the benefit of hindsight. General overviews of the subject have been written by Gerald M. Meier and Paul Streeten.