Historical antecedents of development economics

The historical antecedents of development economics offer a wide range
of notions, views and theories which are still of great importance for
today’s development theories and policies. These notions range from division
of labour to static and dynamic comparative advantages and from
the link between investments and accumulation of capital to embodied
technical progress and to increasing or decreasing returns. Many among
the founding fathers of economics investigated developmental issues;
later on, other aspects occupied the stage in economic science. The
importance of the legacy of classical political economy to modern development
theories is largely due to the fact that both England and France
considered economic growth to be a major political issue; as it is today
in so many developing countries.