Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

Peter Bauer: Blazing the Trail of Development

by

*Ian Vásquez* is the director of the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. He is the editor of _Global Fortune: The Stumble and Rise of World Capitalism_ (2000) and coeditor of _Perpetuating Poverty: The World Bank, the IMF and the De

Abstract

Peter Bauer was a pioneer in development economics and his contributions to the field have been vindicated by the collapse of central planning. Through most of his career, however, Bauer was marginalized by the economics profession. Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, economists frequently neglect Bauer’s work. Two survey articles on trade and development by Anne Krueger are presented as examples of that neglect. Bauer’s emphasis on choice, his interdisciplinary methodology, and his criticism of excessive reliance on formal analysis may help explain the neglect of Bauer even among those who arrive at the same insights and general policy prescriptions.

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Volume (Issue)
Pages
197-212
Published
JEL classification
O1, O2, O4, B31
Keywords
Economic development, trade, growth, economic history
Article Downloads (all formats)
6194 since May 2007

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