Ocran, Matthew Kofi. Economic Development in the Twenty‐first Century. Lessons for Africa Throughout History; 2019; 412 pages. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/saje.12263
• Author: Charles V. R. Wait

South African Journal of Economics Vol. 88:3 September 2020

doi: 10.1111/saje.12263

405

© 2020 Economic Society of South Africa.

BOOK REVIEW

Ocran, Matthew Kofi. Economic Development in the Twenty-first Century. Lessons

for Africa Throughout History; 2019; 412 pages. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

The purpose of the book “…is to frame Africa’s economic development discourse

within economic history.” (vii)

To do justice to this approach, Ocran reviews both economic history in Europe

and Africa as well as the history of economic thought on growth and development.

Early in the book, he turns to the history of economic thought on economic

growth and development.

He analyses how economic thought evolved regarding the meaning and the deter-

minants of economic development. This is done in Chapter Two.

Initially, the concept economic development is reviewed. Then, the counter-con-

cept economic underdevelopment is dealt with.

Ocran uses a 1973 publication by Rodney as his starting point to deal with the

meaning of economic development. Post-1945 the emphasis was on economic

growth; income growth was the focus point, but gradually, the wider concept eco-

nomic development took root.

At the hand of Rodney’s publication, the author deals with the development of

economic thought and starts from Adam Smith’s An Enquiry into the Nature and the

Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

The author regards the period since the days of Adam Smith in the late 1700s until

the eve of the Second World War as the period during which theories evolved around

a view that equated material progress with economic development. A major excep-

tion to this rule was Joseph Schumpeter’s The Theory of Economic Development,

published in German in 1911 and translated into English 5 years before World War

Two in 1934.

Ocran shows that the contemporary belief in infra-structure development as a de-

velopment stimulant is a re-emergence of the Big Push Theory, advocated circa 1953

by Ragnar Nurkse.

The Classical Theories of Growth reviewed together with those from the 1940s

and 1950s he classifies as the Orthodox Theories. From here Ocran moves to the

1970s and 1980s.

In this period, endogenous growth theories started to challenge Harrod, Domar

and Solow’s theories.

The author now reviews what he classifies as Heterodox Theories. Their common

ground is the view that development is a multi-faceted process that should draw on

history and on other social science disciplines.

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