Development Economics

The book under review summarises a lifelong experience in teaching development studies at university level. The author proposes a textbook for students of development economics which provides questions and exercises towards the end of each chapter. The author starts with a necessary contextualisation of his arguments and definitions in light of the mainstream vs. heterodox economics dichotomy, whereas the former is theorised by the interaction of both neoclassical and neoliberal paradigms. The 2007 – 2009 financial crisis unveiled the structural deficiency of mainstream economics for university students, prompting the need for an alternative approach to economic reasoning and theorisation. As the book targets students in the early stages of their study of economics, it starts with important definitions and differentiations between mainstream and heterodox economics, such as developmentalism, structuralism, dependency and Neo-Marxism.