Making World Development Work: Scientific Alternatives to Neoclassical Economic Theory

Making World Development Work is about economic development and its relation to population, environment and resource issues in less affluent countries. The essays presented here criticize the way most large development projects are designed and conducted and are written by professionals from a broad range of disciplines involved in current development research.

Making World Development Work explains why overly simplistic economic models of development have led to many failures and unnecessary environmental destruction. The editors contend the preferred method of development is through a systematiic process that integrates the natural sciences with economics and one that is based on scientific method instead of ideology.

Leclerc and Hall review the logical and methodological basis of neoclassical economics and its application to development. They provide a series of historical perspectives, including less developed countries that have improved successfully and others that have not been as successful. They complete the demonstration with a portfolio of current development research innovations in the social and economic sciences as well as in the natural sciences, including a new logical basis for economics called biophysical economics.

Making World Development Work offers new ways to consider development including the limitations of cheap energy, environmental degradation, and human population growth as the fundamental issues for any economic model that can have any hope of working in the future.

Grégoire Leclerc is senior scientist with the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD).

Charles A. S. Hall is professor of environmental and forest biology at SUNY, Syracuse. He is the author of more than 200 publications and author or editor of seven books including Quantifying Sustainable Development: The Future of Tropical Economies.