Understanding the mechanisms of economic development
By: Angus S. Deaton
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 15891; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 15891.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "I argue that progress in understanding economic development (as in other branches of economics) must come from the investigation of mechanisms; the associated empirical analysis can usefully employ a wide range of experimental and non-experimental methods.  I discuss three different areas of research: the life-cycle saving hypothesis and its implication that economic growth drives higher rates of national saving, the theory of speculative commodity storage and its implications for the time-series behavior of commodity prices, and the relationship between economic growth and nutritional improvement.  None of these projects has yet been entirely successful in offering a coherent account of the evidence, but all illustrate a process of trial and error, in which although mechanisms are often rejected, unlikely theoretical propositions are sometimes surprisingly verified, while in all cases there is a process of learning about and subsequently modifying our understanding of the underlying mechanisms"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 4/13/2010.

Includes bibliographical references.

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Mode of access: World Wide Web.