ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the leading theories of the developmentalists. Their theories and recommendations are more pragmatic and operational than the neoclassical or classical formulations. The theories were devised with an eye to directly affecting public policy in the less-developed countries. A "big push" of concurrent industrial investments could launch a chain reaction of virtuous circles and complementary investments that would then ripple in many directions through the economic system. Hirschman's own interpretation of the relationship of his work to that of Rosenstein-Rodan and Nurkse was that he was a dissenter within the framework of the big-push/balanced growth paradigm. Because Hirschman employed the term unbalanced growth in his major work (1958) on economic development, and because his seminal work came considerably later than the ideas expressed by Rosenstein-Rodan and Nurkse, it has been commonly assumed that Hirschman’s work was to be interpreted as an attack on the theory of big-push or balanced growth.
