PREFACE

Writing a textbook is an intellectual challenge and a personal commitment. I commend the authors for their passion and intellectual rigor for being up to the challenge of updating a classic. This edition is timely. Now, more than ever, the importance of development economics as a field crucial to addressing the major concerns of society is needed. Poverty, income inequality, labor, migration and environmental degradation are the kinds of global issues that development economics routinely addresses. I cannot think of anyone who would question the value of a discipline that dedicates itself to solving these problems. Its influence as a discipline has also grown. As recent as the 1960s and 1970s, many of the themes and research pushed forward by development economics did not yet find their way toward national economic policies. Economic development and economic growth were used interchangeably. Much has changed since then. Now its methodology and its research are routinely used in structuring policy. But it is not only in the field of economics that development economics makes its mark. The broader concept of the haves and the have nots and the tools on reducing this divide extend beyond purely economic matters, into technology, human rights, political science, and public administration, to name a few. It is wonderful that insights and approaches coming from development economics have found their way to much wider applications. In many ways, writing a preface to this book makes me feel I have come full circle. I first encountered development economics talking to my economist father and since then was smitten. I majored in it in college, taught it after, undertook graduate studies in economic policy, and did my dissertation in a sub-field. In each of these steps, this book (an earlier version of course) was there. At this point, I can say I have been involved with the book as a student, a teacher, a researcher, and (though through a very small part) as a contributor. Now I have the privilege to introduce this discipline to a new audience. I hope you gain from it as much learning as I have.

Vincent K. Fabella, Ph.D. President, Jos Rizal University President, Philippine Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (PACSB) Former President, Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU)