Contemporary economics is generally believed to be a discipline that studies how a modern industrial economy functions. But some scholars may make contemporary economics cover not only advanced industrial nations but also developing nations. Frankly speaking, however, contemporary economics becomes powerless when it comes to analyzing economic development or the North-South problem. This shortcoming of modern economics is very serious, for these problems are now the most critical issues of the century. But I am not going to deal with this aspect in the present article. (>u>1>/u>) I just want to note that it is safe to limit the scope of contemporary economics to advanced modern economies.
