Economic Development - Term

Term

The scope of economic development includes the process and policies by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people.

The University of Iowa's Center for International Finance and Development states that:

'Economic development' is a term that economists, politicians, and others have used frequently in the 20th century. The concept, however, has been in existence in the West for centuries. Modernization, Westernization, and especially Industrialization are other terms people have used when discussing economic development. Although no one is sure when the concept originated, most people agree that development is closely bound up with the evolution of capitalism and the demise of feudalism.

Mansell and Wehn also state that economic development has been understood since the World War II to involve economic growth, namely the increases in per capita income, and (if currently absent) the attainment of a standard of living equivalent to that of industrialized countries. Economic development can also be considered as a static theory that documents the state of an economy at a certain time. According to Schumpeter (2003), the changes in this equilibrium state to document in economic theory can only be caused by intervening factors coming from the outside.