Listen Up Economists, Why Might History Matter for Development Policy?

Ravi Kanbur

Working Papers from eSocialSciences

Abstract: History matters, and it matters in important and interesting ways for policy today. But it is not just actual events in the past. It is how they are recorded, interpreted, and the interpretation transmitted, that matters. This is what determines the mental makeup, the preferences in economists’ terminology, of agents in the economy. That is the causal mechanism. It is the embedding of the past in the present’s perception of policy that is the transmission mechanism linking history to today’s development policy.

Keywords: History; Economics; development policy; historical events; economic agents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe, nep-mac and nep-pke
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