“Models and Realities”: An Introduction

This is the first of a series of symposia we are organizing in the pages of the Pakistan Development Review to fix our gaze on the twilight zone lying between the theory and the practice of development economics. In the Autumn of 1979- 1 must confess, not without a tinge of autumnal depression-I had addressed letters to about 50 scholars working in this general area announcing that “it is proposed to bring out symposium issues of the Pakistan Development Review focusing on the State of Development Economics, which in the opinion of many has not yet attained its ‘steady-state’. It is, therefore, essential to have a second (or nth!) look at the state of the art in the general area of development economics, not only to satisfy our academic appetite and to whet it a little bit more, but also to provide proper guidelines for policy formulation”. Those who responded to this request did so enthusiastically, supporting the general idea expressed in the letter. Considering the exceedingly busy schedule that economists keep these days, the outcome of my appeal has been gratifying-even though the ‘utility function’, appropriately discounted by a ‘time-paucity’ factor, has still not been optimized. On the basis of the contributions already received as well as of those confidently expected soon, we should be able to bring out at least three special symposium issues, devoted to the “State of Development Economics: Models and Realities”. The present issue includes papers by outstanding scholars like Jan Tinbergen, Sukhamoy Chakravarty, Paul Streeten, Anthony Bottomley, Pan Yotopoulos and Amit Bhaduri. The coming issues of the Pakistan Development Review will include longer papers on some of the problems touched upon in the present collection and on such basic questions as the choice of techniques, trade policy, economic-demographic modeling, urban-rural and international migrations, etc.