 How and Why Does History Matter for Development Policy?Michael Woolcock, Simon Szreter and Vijayendra Rao Global Development Institute Working Paper Series from GDI, The University of Manchester Abstract: The consensus among scholars and policymakers that ‘institutions matter’ for development has led inexorably to a conclusion that ‘history matters’, since institutions clearly form and evolve over time. Unfortunately, however, the next logical step has not yet been taken, which is to recognise that historians (and not only economic historians) might also have useful and distinctive insights to offer. This paper endeavours to open and sustain a constructive dialogue between history—understood as both ‘the past’ and ‘the discipline’—and development policy by (a) providing a critique of recent ‘big picture’ accounts of comparative economic development (by economists, historians and others), (b) clarifying what the craft of historical scholarship entails, especially as it pertains to understanding causal mechanisms, contexts and complex processes of institutional change, (c) providing examples of historical research that support, qualify or challenge the most influential research (by economists and economic historians) in contemporary development policy, and (d) offering some general principles and specific implications that historians, on the basis of the distinctive content and method of their research, bring to development policy debates. Date: 2009 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bwp:bwppap:6809 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Global Development Institute Working Paper Series from GDI, The University of Manchester Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.