Revisiting development theory: Alice H. Amsden's impact on the field

On 14 March 2012, we lost a great intellectual, Professor Alice H. Amsden. The relevance of her work in development economics and development theory more broadly rests on extensive research and policy engagement in developing countries across the world where she identified crucial, though controversial, insights into the theory and practice of development in a polarised global economy of rising income and wealth inequality. Most memorable, perhaps, are her contributions on the East Asian miracle and "Late Industrialization", in which Alice Amsden derived rigorous case studies and unconventional reflections on the process of economic development. She posed serious challenges to orthodox economic theory and normative policymaking over more than two decades. Also critical, however, is her broader contribution in The Rise of "The Rest" (...