The authors of a recent textbook on the Economics of Development (P. A.
Yotopoulos and J . B. Nugent, 1976) chose as the title of their first
chapter 'The Record of Economic Development and Disillusionment with
Development Economics'. It is striking that dissatisfaction with this
young branch of the tree of economics has become so strong that a
textbook treatment of the subject matter takes Disillusionment as its
point of departure. True, the Disillusion- ment chapter is followed by
many other chapters - there is, after all, some- thing to be said on
development economics that is worth saying - but the wording has
changed, and frequently the focus as well, in comparison to the
development economics of the 1950s and 'sixties. Dissatisfaction and
disillusionment may be interpreted optimistically as an inevitable stage
in the coming-of-age process of development economics. Others may say
that the search for a new paradigm is the core of the problem. At any
rate, there is no room for complacency. It cannot be denied that at
least part of the 'early' development theory came into being as a
justification ex post of policy measures that, for a variety of reasons,
were judged desirable or essen- tial.