ABSTRACT
The debate during the past decade on globalization and the emerging economies has renewed interest in the study of development and underdevelopment. Oddly enough, this renewal has only rarely looked back at the work of the founding thinkers of development theory and what we refer to as development economics. The succession of financial crises since the mid-1980s, culminating in the current crises in the industrialized countries, has made even more compelling the need to discuss old and new approaches and the way they can account for development trends. Of particular interest are two questions now prominent in the discussion of development, which deal with the role of institutions and the role of the public sector and of the state.
