ABSTRACT
The conviction that developing countries are structurally different to developed ones and that specific theories and policy recommendations are required to address their problems dominated the discipline since its birth in the 1940s to the 1970s. The neoclassical counterrevolution of the early 1980s dramatically changed this vision and completely reshaped the boundaries of the discipline. Neoclassical development economists concentrated on issues of macroeconomic adjustment and static allocation of resources, and recuperated the idea that a sole common theory could be used for both developed and developing countries.2 In the last few years, however, the lack of success of standard neoclassical economics in explaining underdevelopment and promoting growth has shown the need to recuperate the work of the “pioneers of development” (e.g. Lewis, Hirschman, Rosenstein-Rodan, Nurkse and Myrdal) and readapt it to the current state of the world.3
