ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of macroeconomic theory, in particular approaches of development economic theory, in Africa from the late colonial to the post-colonial decades of the twentieth century. Economic arguments always played an important role in legitimising colonial rule, as the extraction of distant riches to the benefit of domestic collective’s secured support for any such ventures. In the perspective of welfare economics as designed by Arthur Pigou, economics was a social science aiming at generally raising standards of living for all people, regardless of their decent. This universalism made economics the predominant language available on which to build a critical analysis of late colonial Africa. Development economic theory came into existence at a critical moment in the history of economic thought. Its rise was closely linked to what Don Patinkin has called a double revolution of Keynesianism and measurement in economics.
