Currie's 'leading sector' strategy of growth: an appraisal

Ramesh Chandra

Journal of Development Studies, 2006, vol. 42, issue 3, 490-508

Abstract: This paper offers a new interpretation of Lauchlin Currie's (1974) leading-sector strategy. The idea of a leading sector normally conjures up notions of a favoured or privileged treatment. This paper argues that Currie's leading-sector strategy is a misnomer in the sense that it does not call for any favoured treatment to the chosen sectors (such as urban housing or exports), but only removal of handicaps or institutional barriers. The paper also shows that Currie's strategy is different from Rosenstein-Rodan's (1943, 1961) big push, to which it is often compared. While Rosenstein-Rodan advocated centralised investment planning to maximise the size and to optimise the composition of investment, Currie's leading sectors were based on the Smith (1776)- Young (1928) pro-market framework. Finally, while the policy conclusions of Currie's approach and the current development thinking are similar in many ways, the underlying theoretical framework is very different.

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1080/00220380600576391

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