Human Development: Origins, Evolution and Impact

Modern development economics, that is, that branch of economics concerned with improving conditions in low-income countries, can be traced back to the 19405.1 From its inception development economics has largely been about material enrichment, that is, expanding the volume of production of goods and services. It was usually assumed, explicitly or implicitly, that an increase in aggregate output, say, the growth of gross domestic product per capita, would reduce poverty and raise the general well being of the population. This assumption was rooted in utilitarianism and the view that production generated incomes and higher incomes, in turn, resulted in greater utility or economic welfare. Indeed the connection between increased output and decreased poverty was thought to be so strong that many economists believed that a concentration on growth alone would suffice to achieve the goal of development. Growth, in other words, became not just the means for achieving development but the end of development itself. True, there were always dissenters, but the dissenters tended to qualify the emphasis on growth by underlining the importance of the distribution of the benefits of growth, rather than challenging the importance of growth as such. Debates about alternative development strategies often were debates about how best to accelerate the growth of production of goods and services.2