INVESTIGADORES
ADAMOVSKY Ezequiel Agustin
artículos
Título:
“Before Development Economics: Western Political Economy, the “Russian Case” and the First Perceptions of Economic Backwardness (from the 1760s until the mid 19th century)”
Autor/es:
EZEQUIEL ADAMOVSKY
Revista:
Journal of the History of Economic Thought
Editorial:
Cambridge University Press
Referencias:
Año: 2010 vol. 32 p. 349 - 376
ISSN:
1053-8372
Resumen:
Before the emergence of the field of development economics in the mid-1940s, themainstream of Western economists had very little to say about the world outsidewestern Europe. However, perhaps due to Russia’s ambivalent location as a nationconsidered not fully European (nor completely Asiatic) and to her status as a majorplayer in the international arena despite the fact of her modest economicachievements, from the eighteenth century onwards the ‘‘Russian case’’ called theattention of some of the most prominent Western minds, including the firsteconomists. By discussing Russia’s economy, they came to notions and conceptsregarding development and backwardness that, to a great extent. informed thetwentieth-century debate. The aim of this article is to explore the way in whichRussia as a case study affected the evolution of ideas on economic growth ordevelopment. The evidence of things Russian, it will be argued, raised doubts aboutcommon economic views, thus enabling new thinking that pointed either to criticismof liberal orthodoxy, or to expansion and refinement of its arguments.