SECTION ONE: FUNDAMENTALS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THEORIES

Section One: Fundamentals of Economic Development Theories of the Book Economic Development Planning: Theory and Practice offers an overview of economic development theories and their importance in understanding the processes and determinants of well-being enhancement and overall social improvements. Economic theorizing generally has two main sides, namely, the market-oriented neoclassical economic theory that emphasizes reliance on the market process to explain production, prices, consumption, and income distribution, and the Keynesian theory that relies on and justifies government intervention in the economic process because quite often the market processes fail to allocate resources efficiently. In between these two opposing perspectives are various arguments and explanations of how development takes place and how the process of development can be constrained. For instance, the structuralist theory emphasizes industrialization, infrastructural development, and diminishing external dependency, and argues for import substitution industrialization (ISI) to minimize reliance on imported goods and encourage indigenous industries. The dependency theorists argue that advanced countries systematically perpetuate underdevelopment in less developed countries. The institutional theory highlights the importance of institutions in shaping economic development. Generally, modern theories of development expand people's options and help them to live meaningful lives.

Prof. Uwem Essia holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He taught Development Theory and Planning at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in several universities for more than 2 decades and has written extensively on economic development and planning and other aspects of economics, management, and the social sciences.

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