“From Seers to Sen: The Meaning of Economic Development”
E. Wayne Nafziger
How has the meaning of economic development changed during the twenty years of WIDER’s existence? Two markers are Dudley Seers, “The Meaning of Development” (1967, 1979), for the earlier period and Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999), for the later. Here the meaning of development also encompasses measures and strategies of development and approaches to its study. Moreover, I examine works beyond these markers to provide more detail of the two men’s views.
Both men were critical of the development literature of their times. For Seers, neoclassical economics had a flawed paradigm and dependency theory a lack of policy realism. After the fall of state socialism in 1989-1991, the ideological struggles among economists diminished. Neoclassicism’s Washington Consensus of the World Bank, IMF, and the U.S. government reigned (Williamson 1993, pp. 1329-1336; 1994, pp. 26-28). Sen did not focus on ideological issues but, according to the Nobel prize committee, “restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems” such as development.
According to Seers (1979) the purpose of development is to reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment. For Sen (1999), development involves reducing deprivation or broadening choice. Deprivation represents a multidimensional view of poverty that includes hunger, illiteracy, illness and poor health, powerlessness, voicelessness, insecurity, humiliation, and a lack of access to basic infrastructure (Narayan et al. 2000, pp. 4-5).
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E. Wayne Nafziger
How has the meaning of economic development changed during the twenty years of WIDER’s existence? Two markers are Dudley Seers, “The Meaning of Development” (1967, 1979), for the earlier period and Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999), for the later. Here the meaning of development also encompasses measures and strategies of development and approaches to its study. Moreover, I examine works beyond these markers to provide more detail of the two men’s views.
Both men were critical of the development literature of their times. For Seers, neoclassical economics had a flawed paradigm and dependency theory a lack of policy realism. After the fall of state socialism in 1989-1991, the ideological struggles among economists diminished. Neoclassicism’s Washington Consensus of the World Bank, IMF, and the U.S. government reigned (Williamson 1993, pp. 1329-1336; 1994, pp. 26-28). Sen did not focus on ideological issues but, according to the Nobel prize committee, “restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems” such as development.
According to Seers (1979) the purpose of development is to reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment. For Sen (1999), development involves reducing deprivation or broadening choice. Deprivation represents a multidimensional view of poverty that includes hunger, illiteracy, illness and poor health, powerlessness, voicelessness, insecurity, humiliation, and a lack of access to basic infrastructure (Narayan et al. 2000, pp. 4-5).
Read the rest of the article here:
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