When development meets culture: the contribution of Celso Furtado in the 1970s

• Published in: Cambridge journal of economics 2018-01, Vol.42 (1), p.177-198
• Main Authors: Cunha, Alexandre M., Britto, Gustavo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0309-166X; 1464-3545
• DOI: 10.1093/cje/bex021

The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920–2004) in the 1970s, an ambitious attempt to redefine the field of development economics. Furtado’s work has recently been revisited by several authors in the history of economic thought. This text explores Furtado’s response to the perceived failure of development theory to explain the reality of underdeveloped nations in the late 1970s. Expanding the scope of analysis and assigning culture a pivotal role helped explain the dynamics of development and underdevelopment. This theoretical movement occurred as development economics was drifting out of the mainstream of economic theory. Unlike the discussion of underdevelopment in the 1950s, this discussion of creativity and dependence encountered an adverse intellectual landscape despite being one of Furtado’s most original contributions. This theoretical turning point is interestingly connected to Furtado’s second term at the University of Cambridge. Like the first discussion of underdevelopment during the 1950s, which was critical to the formulation of his historical-structural analytical method, the discussions of the 1970s also led to this Brazilian author’s vivid and interesting contributions to the field of development economics.