Abstract
What is backwardness? This, surprisingly, is one of the elementary questions of developmental economics. Scholars of developmental economics almost without exception devote their first chapter to an academic discussion of how to discern ‘backwardness’ — gross value of output, per capita value of output, national income, per capita income, rate of growth, quality of life, and so on. All sorts of economic indicators are used in an attempt to prove the precise economic significance of ‘backwardness’, but all these economic indicators reveal only one thing about the reasons for backwardness: the reason for backwardness is backwardness.
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Notes and References
Wang Xiaoqiang and Bai Nansheng, ‘Changing Trends in the Development of the Rural Commodity Economy — An Investigation into the Small Commodity Production and Marketing Base of Wenzhou, Zhejiang’, People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao) 13 November 1983.
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© 1991 Angela Knox
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Wang, X., Bai, N. (1991). The Intrinsic Determinant of Backwardness. In: The Poverty of Plenty. Studies on the Chinese Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10843-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10843-5_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-10845-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-10843-5
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