The economic development of small countries : some reflections of a non-economist

Abstract

As the title of my paper makes clear, mine are the musings of a non-economist. But of one who has worked a great deal with economists - especially during my ten years at Sussex in the Institute of Development Studies - one of whose Governing Board members was Lord Balogh, a name not unknown to Malta. I note that in The Times obituary notice earlier this year, there was a reference to Lord Balogh's "contempt for most of the professional work done by economists". As a non-economist I am hardly qualified to assess the professional work of my betters in such trenchant terms. Yet, I must confess to some wonderment at the way the reputation of and demand for economists continue to thrive. Economists, including many recognized as being outstanding, have failed to find formulae to permit their countries (including the U.K.) to control their economies. Yet still, countries poor and rich continue to expend vast - and often ill affordable - resources in getting economists together briefly, in the hope that they will come up with solutions to the economic problems of the host state when they are unable to find solutions to the economic ills of their own nation. Such economists are highly skilled in articulating problems: yet seemingly wholly incapable of producing workable solutions. Yet the conditions they are trying to improve are predominantly (natural disasters notwithstanding) made by man. Could any other profession have thrived so well with such a record? Yet as I have suggested, services of economists were never in greater demand. What President or P.M. does not have his own team of economic advisers? Which academic calendar does not have its quota of conferences, workshops, seminars on largely - no, exclusively - economic themes? What has been the outcome for the small countries whose interests are the concern of this seminar? A highly mobile but esoteric union has been created which successfully but incestuously serves its own interests. But what has it done for the inhabitants of those poor small nations whose condition continues to deteriorate while commodity mountains co-exist with starvation and malnutrition, and the brain drain from those same small countries co-exists with increasing barriers to immigration outside? I make no apology for presenting these seemingly "non-economic" issues to a seminar entitled "the economic development of small countries". The substantive point I wish to make is that economic development cannot constructively be discussed in cozy isolation exclusively by economists. No worthwhile development plan was ever produced exclusively by economists. And it is no less certain that no development plan was implemented exclusively by economists. My plea is not merely for multi-disciplinarity. It is above all for interdisciplinarity. We heard from one of the speakers the sad tale of his failure to achieve inter-disciplinarity with his research undertaking. There is a lesson there for all of us. Economists, in my experience are not the best people at listening to others. Indeed they are often not too adept at listening to each other. Without wishing to appear to bite the hand that feeds me, the opening paragraph of our conference brochure provides a case in point. The very first sentence states, "Until recently, the problem of size in Development Economics has not been given much attention". Philippe Hein demonstrated in his paper that this simply is not so. But enough on the role of economists. I hope I have made my point.