From the late 1940s to 1960s, development economics mainly emphasized the importance of capital accumulation. Emphasize the importance of planning; Emphasize the importance of industrialization.
Economists who emphasize the importance of capital accumulation include Lewis, Knox, Rosenstand Rodin and Rostow. The theory that emphasizes capital accumulation develops from two aspects.
On the one hand, Chenery and others gradually realized that it is not only the scale of investment that hinders economic growth and development, but also the amount of foreign exchange reserves that must be used to buy imported raw materials, intermediate products and machinery and equipment. They put forward a two-gap model, that is, the shortage of domestic reserves needs to be filled by the inflow of foreign capital.
On the other hand, Schultz and others believe that it is not only material capital that promotes economic development, but also the importance of human capital must be paid enough attention.
Some development economists emphasize the importance of planning, such as Bergen, Lewis, Rosenstand Rodin and Chenery. The reasons for this view are: the simple market function can no longer adapt to the structural changes necessary for economic development; People are deeply impressed by the achievements of planned economy in socialist countries. The emergence of advanced computing programs and high-speed electronic computers makes it possible to build and calculate more complex models.
Chenery and others believe that the market price in developing countries often cannot reflect the real scarcity value, and advocate using "accounting price" or "shadow price" to correct the deviation of market price from scarcity degree. They also study and optimize the planning and resource allocation in the general equilibrium system from the perspective of social marginal productivity, build a model on some specific assumptions, and find a perfect solution in the mathematical sense. In the future, the model will develop in the direction of dynamic programming and nonlinearity. However, as Taylor, a development economist, and others engaged in this research admit, the model's practicability is limited.
Knox, Rosenstand Rodin and Lewis also emphasized the role of industrialization in economic development. Previch and other members of the Economic Commission for Latin America also believe that developing countries must realize industrialization; Haberler, Cohen Cross and others also analyzed international knowledge dissemination and capital flow from a dynamic perspective according to the static comparative advantage theory of classical school and neoclassical school, and reached the conclusion that international trade is beneficial to developing countries.
However, many developing countries have adopted the strategy of import substitution industrialization. The theoretical basis of this strategy is the traditional theory of protecting infant industries, Previch's theory of deteriorating terms of trade and the theory of "center" exploiting "periphery", as well as Madar's further emphasis on the theory of international structural inequality.
After the mid-1960s, development economics began to adopt more viewpoints and methods of neoclassical school theory. More empirical analysis methods are used; Pay more attention to various factors affecting development; The goal of growth and development was further studied.
Some development economists, such as Tritton, put forward that the goal of growth and development should be to ensure basic needs, not to maximize national income. In other words, in the process of growing up, we should pay attention to improving health, nutrition and education conditions in order to have a direct and positive effect on human resources. There should be no excessive and inappropriate structural and technological changes and capital expenditures, and attention should be paid to adopting relatively simple methods such as reducing consumption and improving existing technologies to improve productivity. This view is called "basic needs theory".
Due to many problems in the early rapid growth of developing countries, development economists began to feel that it is impossible and inappropriate to guide all developing countries with unified theories and policy suggestions. We should make a concrete analysis according to the specific historical and social background of each country and put forward practical policy suggestions. Some development economists, such as Hirschman, call the gradual failure of this unified theory "the stagnation of development economics".
The mainstream of development economics is neoclassical school, which is based on traditional vulgar economics and the thought of neoclassical school represented by Marshall. They believe that development is a gradual, continuous and cumulative process, which is realized through marginal adjustment; Development is a harmonious and stable process, based on the automatic balance mechanism; It is possible to continue to develop and the prospects are optimistic.
In a word, economic development is regarded as a process without conflict, leap and qualitative change. All it needs is to create appropriate stimulus, improve the market mechanism and start the growth machine that will run by itself.
This view of development of neoclassical school obviously does not conform to the objective reality of developing countries. In fact, the market mechanism cannot play a reasonable regulatory role, and the benefits of economic growth cannot spread population and poverty. Unemployment, social contradictions and underutilization of resources have increased in some developing countries. In addition to the above-mentioned basic views on development, development economics also inherits the research methods of neoclassical school, and intentionally or unintentionally ignores the qualitative stipulation of economic development.
Under the old international economic order, developing countries are in an unequal and fragile position in economic relations with developed countries, so it is also true in trade. Multinational companies' commodity exports and investments have encountered difficulties and suffered losses. However, some development economists often explain and defend from the perspective of developed countries, thus blurring the line between right and wrong.
Although development economics has the above vulgar views, it also has some beneficial elements. The development experience and lessons of developing countries it analyzes and studies are of reference value. The analysis of some local specific problems in the theory of developing economy is not all fallacies. Development economics has great influence on all aspects of the economy of developing countries, such as population, industry, agriculture, trade and finance. Finance and education, etc. , and got some noteworthy arguments.
Although the neoclassical school is the orthodoxy of development economics, some people in western economics can study economic development from the interrelated causality with a dynamic point of view and put forward more practical views.
In the literature of development economics, we can also see the theory of radical school. Radicals emerged as the opposite of the mainstream, and held completely different views from the neo-canon on many important issues related to economic development. For example, regarding the nature and root causes of underdevelopment in developing countries, the radicals have put forward more pertinent opinions.
Economic regions are divided according to the spatial distribution law of human economic activities, with homogeneity and agglomeration, basically complete economic structure, and play a specific role in the national economic system. Regional economy is the spatial system of national economy, the sum of socio-economic activities and socio-economic relations or connections in an economic region, and the substantive content of an economic region.
Regional economics: it is a science that studies the change or movement law, function and mechanism of economic activities in a certain natural region or administrative region. It is a combination of economics and economic geography.
1. Regional economics is a comprehensive applied science that studies the development and changes of different regional economies, spatial organizations and their relationships in China from the perspective of economics.
2. Regional economics is a discipline that studies and reveals the interaction between region and economy. This paper mainly studies the spatial distribution and development law of productive forces under the condition of market economy, explores the ways and measures to promote the economic growth of specific regions rather than enterprises, and how to realize the optimal allocation of resources and improve the overall economic benefits of regions on the basis of giving full play to the advantages of each region, so as to provide theoretical basis and scientific guidance for government decision-making.
3, the specific analysis of the regularity of regional economic development (including the analysis of regional characteristics, the goal is to attract and policy, means, the evolution of industrial structure, population growth and mobility, urban construction and layout, regional land planning, regional alliance and interregional interest coordination, regional proportional relationship. The main research directions of the discipline include: urbanization and urban economy, spatial structure theory, regional productivity distribution, rational development and utilization of resources, rural economy, regional planning and management, regional investment and financing, etc.
Historical background of regional economics.
A region is a certain geographical space. The natural resources, population distribution, transportation, education level, science and technology level, industrial and agricultural development level, consumption level and political system in this area have great influence on the social and economic activities and production process in this area. How to make the economic development of a region achieve the overall optimal effect? Regional economics is produced in this situation.
Its formation and development originated from the agricultural location theory put forward by German economist Du Neng in 1826, which has a history of nearly 180 years. But as a relatively independent science, it was generally formed in the 1950s. Since the 1960s, with the continuous expansion of location research from micro to macro and the government's intervention in regional economic activities to solve regional problems, regional economics has developed rapidly. Originated in western countries, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union also set off an upsurge of regional economics research in the past 60 years. China didn't start this work until after 1980s.
Regional economics and economic geography are closely related. On the one hand, it evaluates regional natural resources and natural conditions economically, analyzes regional economic and social factors, and more importantly, it puts forward scientific basis for formulating regional development outline and establishes econometric model of regional economy.
The historical background of regional economics has three aspects:
The economic background of (1) is manifested in two aspects: first, the division of labor among regions is deepening, and the imbalance of economic development among regions is increasing, such as the differences between Japan and the outside, the differences between the northeast and the west and the south of the United States, the differences between England and Scotland and Northern Ireland in Britain, and the differences between the east and the west of the Soviet Union. Second, the exposure of regional economic problems. For example, in the Tennessee Valley of the United States, the per capita income of 1933 is only 168 US dollars, which is less than half of the national average income. The unemployment rate in northwest, northeast and Scotland is over 25%, in Wales it is over 36%, and in London and southeast England it is less than 14%.
(2) Political background: Western capitalism has developed to the stage of state monopoly capitalism, and the government's economic functions have been strengthened, and the government has the ability to intervene in regional economic development; In the East, the socialist system was born. On the one hand, socialist countries implement planned economy, and the government is the main body of resource allocation. The government can allocate resources between regions. On the other hand, the socialist economy needs planned and balanced development, including regional development.
(3) scientific and technological background. The third scientific and technological revolution makes the research methods and means of regional economics more advanced, which is obviously different from other economic disciplines.
Regional economics is formed under the above three backgrounds.
Regional economics: research object, main viewpoints and representative figures
In the past, the research object of regional economy has not yet formed a unified view, and the representative views mainly include:
(1) Regional economics is the study of specific geographical areas. It is no different from general economics, except that its research scope is regions rather than countries. Most people who hold this view are beginners.
(2) Studying the geographical distribution and spatial organization law of human economic activities, so it is also called spatial economics. The representatives who hold this view are North, Richardson and Hoover.
(3) Studying the main problems of the region, the representatives who hold this view are North, Richardson, Hoover, Ezard (known as the founder of western regional economics), Zhou, Liu Zaixing, etc.
(4) Studying the regional differences and connections, Du Bei is the main representative who holds this view.
(5) Studying the interaction law and relationship between region and economy, the representative figure holding this view is Zhang Dunfu.
(6) The decision-making science of studying the economic development of different regions in China and their interrelationships from a macro perspective. The main representatives who hold this view are,, Hao Shouyi and An.
Contents and main works of regional economics research
The main research fields include: regional economic theory, productivity distribution theory, economic adjustment mechanism of productivity distribution, economic development strategy and economic planning of new district, etc. Regional economics is an economic discipline developed on the basis of macro-location theory in 1950s. Representative works such as Isolated Country (1850) and industrial location theory by Weber (1909) which had graphic skills in the early days. From 65438 to 0978, the publication of the book Regional Economics by Necrasov, an economist of the former Soviet Union, marked the development of this discipline to a new level.
The disciplinary nature of regional economics
There is no unified view on the disciplinary nature of regional economics. At present, there are three main viewpoints:
(1) Regional economics is a branch of applied economics, and together with industrial economics, it constitutes meso-economics;
(2) Regional economics is a branch of geography;
(3) Regional economics is an interdisciplinary subject, and it is an interdisciplinary subject of economics and geography.