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A View from the Tropics: Celso Furtado and the Theory of Economic Development in the 1950s

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  • Mauro Boianovsky

Abstract

The article shows how Celso Furtado's interpretation of development and underdevelopment as interdependent phenomena was part of the emergence of development economics as a research field in the 1950s. The main features of underdeveloped economic structures, according to Furtado, were their technological heterogeneity—in the sense of significant differences in the capital-labor ratio between two or more sectors—and underemployment caused by maladjustment between the availability of factors and irreversible production methods. Both characteristics were explained by the historical pattern of integration of those economies into international trade.

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  • Mauro Boianovsky, 2010. "A View from the Tropics: Celso Furtado and the Theory of Economic Development in the 1950s," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 221-266, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:42:y:2010:i:2:p:221-266
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    1. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
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    5. Albert O. Hirschman, 1968. "The Political Economy of Import-Substituting Industrialization in Latin America," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(1), pages 1-32.
    6. John Toye & Richard Toye, 2003. "The Origins and Interpretation of the Prebisch-Singer Thesis," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(3), pages 437-467, Fall.
    7. Nora Lustig, 1980. "Underconsumption in Latin American Economic Thought: Some Considerations," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 12(1), pages 35-43, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Felipe Orsolin Texeira & Daniel Arruda Coronel & Jose' Luis Oreiro, 2023. "Income distribution and development: Celso Furtado's theory in a context of global economic changes and its proximity to neo(post)-Kaleckian literature," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 76(307), pages 337-351.
    2. James M. Cypher, 2014. "The Origins of Developmentalist Theory," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 15-32, October.
    3. Jonas Rama & John Battaile Hall, 2019. "Celso Furtado as 'Romantic Economist' from Brazil's Sertão [Celso Furtado como Economista Romântico do Sertão]," Post-Print hal-02866791, HAL.
    4. Jonas Rama & John Battaile Hall, 2019. "Celso Furtado as 'Romantic Economist' from Brazil's Sertão [Celso Furtado como Economista Romântico do Sertão]," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02866791, HAL.
    5. Mauro Boianovsky, 2011. "Furtado and the structuralist-monetarist debate on economic stabilization in Latin America," Anais do XXXVII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 37th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 004, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    6. Mauro Boianovsky, 2011. "Humboldt And The Classical Economists Onnatural Resources, Institutions And Underdevelopment," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 116, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].

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