ABSTRACT
The analysis of the causes of the wealth of nations is the founding origin of the history of economic ideas, as the title of Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations indicates. The search for the causes of the rise, and sometimes fall, of nations was a key issue of eighteenth-century economics and has inspired modern growth theories, from Harrod’s work in 1939 to the so-called “new growth theories” of the 1980s. Capital accumulation and investment, and more recently R&D, and externalities and increasing returns are some of the recurring issues in modern development theory. This collection offers a blend of essays of history of economic thought and development economics and tries to suggest a particular point of view.
