ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we have defined development studies as a multidisciplinary (or cross-disciplinary) subject area rather than as a ‘discipline’ in itself. Economics has a long intellectual history as a discipline, comparable with other disciplines such as sociology, mathematics or chemistry. However, the study of economics itself involves a considerable amount of ‘inter-disciplinarity’ with, for example, technical/scientific issues being of particular significance in production economics, including the economics of agriculture, and in environmental economics (see for example Sumner and Tribe, 2008a: Chapter 1 and 2008b). This interaction with other disciplines is considerably greater in what is known as ‘micro economics’, which relate to – inter alia – production (the firm) and consumption (the household), than in ‘macroeconomics’, which relate to the economy as a whole, including national income analysis, which covers aggregate savings, investment and international trade and payments. We view economics as an integral part of a multi-disciplinary development studies, but retaining a distinctive role specific to its individual disciplinary characteristics within the broader multidisciplinary framework.
