On a mission: planning an economy with mutable mobiles

Mary S. Morgan

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: When newly independent states in Africa set out to make their own economies in the 1960s, they did so under the label of “planning,” a generic term denoting economic policy-making to create the economic future. This planning was guided by international experts, sent “on missions” to help, or perhaps oversee, local economists in what was seen then as an expert, technocratic process. Nigeria offers an important example of this technocracy at work, under the guidance of its “missionary”: Wolfgang Stolper. His diary, and his writings of the day, reveal how local information and local values travelled around social, political and economic circles, to be then spliced together according to certain economic principles in making a “five-year plan” for the future of Nigeria.

Keywords: economic planning; development "missions"; new states; mutable mobiles; national accoutnts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J1 N0 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2025-11-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hpe
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Published in Science in Context, 12, November, 2025. ISSN: 0269-8897

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