The structuralist perspective to economic growth and development: Conceptual foundations and policy implications

The seventies and eighties have seen a resurgence of work on what may be termed a structural view or perspective on economic growth and development. This chapter describes what are believed to be the main implications of the structuralist perspective; namely, the relevance of a new area of growth promoting policy called industrial and technological policy. It analyzes the structuralist perspective in terms of the following main headings: attitude towards and conditions for structural change; comparative advantage; tangible and intangible resource accumulation; and government policies. The chapter presents the conceptual foundations underlying the reasons structural changes are central to growth together with a survey of possible market failures blocking such changes. Some of the formal models permit a representation of structuralist perspective in terms of a “scalloped” aggregate production function for the economy, with a singularity point indicating the node or juncture of structural change.