Lessons of Post-war Development Experience: 1945–88

Abstract

The story of development, the lessons of development experience, the evolution of our thinking about development, all these things (which are not exactly the same) can be written from many different angles. One could start the story with the high hopes for a Brave New World at the end of the Second World War at Bretton Woods; comparing these hopes with the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s, with its debt crisis, African crisis and development going into reverse — at least in Africa and Latin America. The story could then be written as one of steady deterioration, of the Brave New World of 40 years ago ending in a developmental wasteland today. But that story would certainly not be wholly true. It would not do justice to the many success stories in development, nor to the ‘Golden Years’ spanning over two decades after Bretton Woods, nor to the fact that measured by such simple but compelling indicators as expectation of life, infant mortality, technological capacity, or progress with industrialization, the Third World as a whole is markedly better off than 40 years ago.KeywordsIndustrial CountryImport SubstitutionExport EarningPrimary CommodityBretton Wood SystemThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.