Hayek and economic development

Abstract

Development economics emerged as a field in the 1950s and early 1960s, and in its earliest instantiation it was dubbed "Modernization Theory." If one looks at his published work, it would appear that Friedrich A. Hayek wrote very little about development during this period. This paper suggests that, contrary to the paucity of published evidence, it was a topic in which he was keenly interested. Parts of his published work (e.g., The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty) contain thoughts on development issues, but we can see it also in unpublished pieces (e.g., a report on Gibraltar he prepared for the British Colonial Office, lectures he gave at the University of Virginia in 1961), in a radio address that he gave in November 1960, and in his organizing of sessions on development in his role as President of the Mont Pelerin Society in the 1950s that led to a distinctive liberal Mont Pelerin approach to development issues.