This book discusses possibilities for, and obstacles to, economic development in lower income countries in Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It examines how lower income countries might 'catch up' and advantages and disadvantages of the lateness of poor countries in the development process.

• Part 1: Structural Transformation and Catching Up


• 1: Martin Andersson and Tobias Axelsson: Diversity of Development Paths and Structural Transformation in Historical Perspective: An Introduction


• 2: Lennart Schön: Structural Change and Catching Up: The Relative Small Country Advantage


• 3: Justin Yifu Lin: The Latecomer Advantages and Disadvantages: A New Structural Economics Perspective


• 4: C. Peter Timmer: The Role of Agriculture in Catching Up: A Gerschenkronian Perspective


• Part 2: Diversity in Development


• 5: Christer Gunnarsson: Misinterpreting the East Asian Miracles: A Gerschenkronian perspective on substitution and advantages of backwardness in the industrialization of Eastern Asia


• 6: Anne Booth: Southeast Asia: The Half-Way Miracles?


• 7: Luis Bértola: Catching Up: Now and Then: Has Latin America Changed Tracks?


• 8: Lee Alston and Bernardo Mueller: Economic Backwardness and Catching Up: Brazilian Agriculture, 1964-2014


• 9: Gareth Austin: Is Africa too Late for 'Late Development'? Gerschenkron South of the Sahara


• 10: Erik Thorbecke and Yusi Ouyang: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Finally Catching Up?


• 11: Martin Andersson and Tobias Axelsson: Relative Economic Backwardness and Catching up: Lessons from History, Implications for Development Thinking

Martin Andersson is Associate Professor in Economic History at Lund University. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank and has been a Marie Curie post-doc at EUI in Florence and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. His research interests include agricultural development and the relation between economic growth, poverty reduction, and distribution of income in the developing world. He is co-editor of Development and Structural Change in Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2003).
Tobias Axelsson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economic History at Lund University. His research is on agricultural transformation processes and colonial origins of inequality. He has been a guest researcher at ISEAS in Singapore and a guest research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden. Dr Axelsson is a co-founder of the Bachelor programme in development studies at Lund University.