Comparative Economic Progress A Review Article

Abstract

The study of economic growth would seem to offer unusual opportunities for the application of the comparative method. The number of cases is large, from the Egypt of the Pharoahs to the Egypt of Nasser, from the civilizations of the Indus, of Babylon, and the Mayas to the latest development programs of Pakistan, Iraq, and Guatamala. The practical significance of increased understanding of the process of growth could be great indeed. And economic growth theorists, after plunging ahead in the eary postwar years with unlimited confidence in the tools of their trade, have more recently issued open invitations to historians, anthropologists, and other scholars who deal with whole societies to assist in the formulation of hypotheses explanatory of economic growth. Recent textbooks and surveys of the field now include as a matter of course a section devoted to “the lessons of history”. More specialized works frequently include a chapter on the historical background of their subjects or numerous historical or comparative analogies. As yet, however, the actual contributions of comparative history to an understanding of the process of economic development have been limited, not to say negligible. Historical events and episodes have been used to illustrate this or that theory of development, but historical experience en grand has not yet been used satisfactorily to generate a theory of its own; nor have economic historians, the scholars indicated by training and professional orientation to bridge the gap between economic theory and historical experience, shown any great enthusiasm for the task. A prize competition recently opened by the Council (formerly Committee) on Research in Economic History for studies in comparative economic history failed to attract a single suitable entry.