Complexity Theory for Development Policy

Sponsored by the Center for Global Development. In this podcast, adapted from his Kapuściński Lecture of May 2012, Owen Barder explores the implications of complexity theory for development policy. He explains how traditional economic models have tried and failed to understand why some countries have managed to improve living standards while other countries have not. Using complexity theory, he shows that development is a property of a system, not the sum of what happens to the people within it. 

Drawing on the understanding of complex adaptive systems in physics and biology, this suggests important policy implications for policymakers who want to bring about faster development in their own country, or to help other countries to make faster progress. 

The lecture finishes with seven policy recommendations for development. 

 The pdf of the key slides and narrative is linked here