Institutional Evolution in Oxford

The institutional centres in Oxford where development economists congre­gate have been of considerable importance in generating collaborative research and the fertilisation of ideas, as well as in encouraging interdisciplinarity.

QEH was constituted by Royal Charter in 1954 as a residential centre affiliated to the University which people concerned with the study of Commonwealth affairs could visit in order to make contacts and exchange ideas. In 1961, the Institute for Commonwealth Studies moved into QEH, bringing with it Oxford academic positions from a number of disciplines, mainly non-economists. In 1968, the economist Paul Streeten became Director, and it was then that QEH became a focus for development econom­ics. The Agricultural Economics Research Institute was subsumed into QEH in 1986 when the latter became a fully fledged department of the University. Subsequently, QEH introduced graduate degrees, including the multidisci­plinary MPhil in Development Studies, a doctorate in Development Studies and, over time, several other Master's programmes, as well as becoming responsible for the MSc in Economics for Development. The Department was renamed the Oxford Department for International Development in 2008.

Nuffield College is a multidisciplinary graduate college—covering eco­nomics, politics and sociology—founded in 1937. Prominent economists associated with the College at various times who have contributed to develop­ment economics include Ian little, James Mirrlees, Nicholas Stern and Amartya Sen.

In the 1960s, the University established regional studies for Latin America, the Middle East, Japan, Russia and Eastern Europe and appointed young research-driven economists. They made a valuable contribution to develop­ment research through their knowledge of the economies of particular regions, combined with a concern for historical, institutional, socio-political and pol­icy issues.

The two centres most relevant to development were the Latin American Centre (LAC), created in 1964, and the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), established in 1991. In LAC, economists have adopted a historical and institutional approach, often conducting multidisciplinary col­laborative work, usually involving an extensive international collaborative network with colleagues from both the Americas. Oxford economists associ­ated with the Centre have included Rosemary Thorp, Valpy FitzGerald and Diego Sanchez-Ancochea. CSAE was set up with an ambitious research agenda covering both macro- and microeconomic questions, all with a central focus on understanding how poverty in Africa could be reduced, using advanced theory and statistical techniques, particularly household surveys to investigate poverty, and firm-level data to investigate sources of low productivity within manufacturing firms. The Centre was initially directed by Paul Collier^[6] with Francis Teal as Deputy. Besides them, senior researchers included Chris Adam, Abigail Barr, David Bevan, Marcel Fafchamps and John Knight, as well as many younger researchers, including a number of African scholars. It became a focal point for collaborative work among numerous African countries and produced both detailed country-level research and comparative work across these countries. The major innovation, for an African-focused research agenda, was that household and firm surveys were designed to generate panel data.

Although there was no centre for Asian studies as such, South Asia was a focus of extensive study throughout the period.

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