Evaluation On Myrdal's Economic Theory

As an eminent Swedish economist, Gunnar Myrdal won the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1974 for his outstanding contributions to monetary theory, institutional economics and development economics. Being an institutional economist, Myrdal's development views are highly related to his institutional perspective. He adopted the institutional approach to analyze the poverty and development problems in underdeveloped countries, and emphasized the important functions of non-economic factors, such as political, social and cultural factors. Base on this, Myrdal put forward a series of social transformation policies. The theory and policies Myrdal developed distinguished him from other development economists, and he was named as one of the pioneer of development economics.Myrdal paid much attention to the development problems in Asian counties, which share some similarities with China. Therefore, Myrdal's development theory would be beneficial for analyzing reforms and development in China. In recent years, some Chinese scholars have carried out researches on Myrdal's theory, but a systematic and comprehensive research is still lacked. In consideration of this, the main point in this paper is to give a systematic introduction and evaluation to Myrdal's economic theory and his economic research approach, especially his international economic theory.This paper includes five parts. The first part introduces Myrdal's biographical sketch and the general approach he adopted. The second part deals with Myrdal's institutional and development theory. The third part is about the policies which he concluded on the development of the underdeveloped countries. The fourth part deals with his international economic theory and in the last part, evaluates his development theory and policy, and comes up with some suggestions to the development and revolution of Chinese economy.