Amitava K. Dutt

The decade of the 1980s represented a notable deviation from the widespread and significant development advances of the previous 30 years. This was reflected in an extensive re-examination of the theoretical and empirical bases of development economics.This major new book - written by a group of distinguished economists - provides the new directions needed for confronting the continuing challenge of development. Lance Taylor, Joseph Stiglitz and Amitava Dutt focus primarily on recent theoretical developments and highlight significant advances in several areas especially in new structuralist and new neoclassical approaches. Ajit Singh, Keith Griffin and Kenneth Jameson present a refreshing perspective on the recent experience of developing countries and the prospects of development in coming decades.The main thesis of the book is that the 1980s represented a clear break in the development processes, but the 1990s and beyond hold the possibility of a viable re-direction of development and development economics.

This important new book - the first of its kind - provides a detailed analysis and critical appraisal of the neo-Ricardian Keynesians and the post Keynesians. After placing them in the context of modern schools of macroeconomics, it discusses their contributions including the neo-Ricardian synthesis of Sraffa's ideas on the heterogeneity of capital goods and Keynes's ideas on effective demand, and the post Keyensian analysis of the role of historical time, money and uncertainty in Keynes's work. In conclusion, it suggests a synthesis of their views which could be seen as a starting point for an important challenge to mainstream economics.