SOME FUNDAMENTAL PUZZLES IN ECONOMIC HISTORY/DEVELOPMENT

In this essay I would like to confront a number of fundamental puzzles in economic history/development--puzzles that go to the heart of the nature of economic change. They can be broadly classified under two general headings: how to account for the uneven and erratic pattern of both historical change and contemporary development and how to model this processs of change and development? Can we use the tools at hand-- ie the rationality assumption and growth theory we employ in economics? Let me elaborate on the nature of the puzzles and the connection between them.