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Economies In Transition And In Development: A Possible Warning From Adam Smith, Maria Paganelli

Maria Pia Paganelli

Adam Smith was concerned with the nature and causes of economic growth and development. One may therefore ask if it is possible to use his work, even if only as speculation, in order to gather useful insights about today’s developing or transitional economies. With all the due caveats, this paper asks: if Adam Smith were alive today, what would he say about transitioning and developing economies? Testing whether Adam Smith would be correct in his analysis, I leave to other work.