Paul Rosenstein-Rodan and the Birth of Development Economics

This article, based on previously untapped archival sources, offers an assessment of the life and thought of Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, a pioneer of development economics and one of the first articulators of both the “Big Push” and “balanced growth” theories. In addition to documenting the early life of Rosenstein-Rodan, this article discusses two critical junctures in the history of development economics, namely, the birth of the discipline in the late 1940s, and its decline approximately a quarter century later. Rosenstein-Rodan was a fundamental player in both instances. Through the lens of his experience it is possible to understand the eclectic beginnings of development economics and locate some of its most important roots in the intellectual milieu of interwar Europe, from Vienna to London via Eastern and Southern Europe. What is more, Rosenstein-Rodan’s subsequent career epitomizes the arc of development economics, casting new light on the debates and practices that shaped the discipline during its rise, and on the unresolved issues that help explain its decline.

Albert Hirschman, Lauchlin Currie, la teoría de los “eslabonamientos” Rosenstein Rodan y el “gran impulso” de Paul Rosenstein-Rodan

Este escrito presenta un trabajo inédito de 1970 del distinguido economista del desarrollo Lauchlin Currie (1902-1993) sobre el famoso artículo de 1944 acerca del “Gran Impulso” de Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, que llevó al debate del crecimiento balanceado y desbalanceado en el que Albert Hirschman (1915 - 2012) fue un partícipe importante. Tanto Currie como Hirschman fueron asesores económicos del gobierno colombiano y aquí se contrastan sus respectivos puntos de vista sobre la planeación del desarrollo. En particular, se muestra que el artículo de Currie de1970 esclarece la teoría que sirve de base al Plan Nacional 1971-1974 de Colombia, que él diseñó y ayudó a ejecutar, y cuyas innovaciones institucionales han tenido un impacto duradero en la historia económica reciente de Colombia.

El Gran Impulso y el crecimiento balanceado y desbalanceado

Este artículo, que es a la vez una contribución a la historia del pensamiento económico y una aclaración de la teoría del desarrollo económico en la que se basó el Plan de Desarrollo colombiano de 1970-1974, Las cuatro estrategias, discute la propuesta de Paul Rosenstein-Rodan para acelerar el crecimiento en los países en desarrollo, y critica los puntos de vista de Albert Hirschman sobre el falso problema crecimiento balanceado-crecimiento desbalanceado que, en opinión del autor, dilapidó mucho tiempo y muchos esfuerzos, y, desvió la atención de los problemas verdaderos que debían ser tema de la teoría del desarrollo y de las políticas para acelerar el crecimiento económico y salir del subdesarrollo.

Armadilha de lucratividade e Big Push: considerações a partir de Rosenstein-Rodan

Resumo Este ensaio apresenta uma situação de armadilha de lucratividade como mecanismo teórico explicativo da condição de estagnação de determinadas economias, sobretudo aquelas em desenvolvimento. Utilizando algumas contribuições teóricas de Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, defende-se, como possibilidade de ruptura desta condição, a ocorrência de um Big Push para que uma escala mínima de capital seja gerada e retornos crescentes sobre o trabalho, advindos de ganhos de aprendizagempossam atuar. O principal resultado é que esses ganhos são fundamentais para se gerar um círculo virtuoso, que intensificará o processo de industrialização e guiará a economia em direção a elevados níveis de renda.

Business Groups and the Big Push: Meiji Japan's Mass Privatization and Subsequent Growth

Paul Rosenstein-Rodan argues that economic development requires coordinated investment in many interdependent industries, and prescribes a flood of state-controlled investment across all sectors—a so-called big push. Widespread government failure defeated twentieth-century ‘big push’ schemes. But spillovers across firms and industries, and from public goods, hold-up problems, and capital market limitations are real, and justify coordinated growth across sectors if it can be done without government failures. Large, extensively diversified pyramidal business groups of listed firms dominate the histories of developed economies and the economies of developing economies. Arguing that such groups provided this coordination in prewar Japan after a state-run big push failed, we propose that pyramidal business groups are private-sector mechanisms for coordinating big push growth, and that competition between rival groups induces efficiency unattainable in a state-run big push. We postulate that a successful business-group led big push requires economic openness, basic public goods, rule of law, separation of the state from business, and a timely demise of business groups when the big push phase is complete.Where these criteria are not met, growth stalls and oligarchic families become too powerful to dislodge.

“Looking at the Other Side of the Coin”: Allyn Young and the Early Development Theory

This paper investigates the influence of Allyn Abbott Young's theoretical work on the groundbreaking contributions of early development theorists, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan and Ragnar Nurkse. The work of Allyn Young had a significant impact on early development theory as the above-mentioned pioneers of development economics built substantial portions of their theories—the “big push” and “vicious circle and balanced growth,” respectively—on the dynamic external economies, an integral part of the vision of self-sustaining growth, as described in Young (1928).