Profile Major Works Resources

Paul Streeten, 1917-  

Austrian-born development economist. 

Paul Streeten was born Paul Hornig (name was later changed), and raised in Vienna, to a notable Austrian family of Jewish extraction, extensively linked with the Viennese intelligentsia and radical politics. From a very early age, Hornig was involved in socialist youth movements.  Hornig enrolled at the University of Vienna, coming under the influence of Othmar Spann, but his studies were interrupted by the 1938 Anschluss.  The family managed to emigrate one by one.  Paul was the first to leave, making his way to England, where he was hosted for some time by the sisters Marjorie and Dorothy Streeten in Sussex.  In late 1938, Paul enrolled at the University of Aberdeen.  His studies were interrupted again in 1940, when he was detained by the British authorities as an enemy alien.  For the next year, he would proceed through a series of British internment camps, both in Britain and Canada.  Finally released, Paul volunteered for the British army and was assigned to an inter-allied commando unit, composed largely of foreigners from occupied countries  Advised to take up English names and cover-stories in case they were captured by the Germans, Paul Hornig became Paul Streeten.  Streeten's unit participated in the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.  Mauled by shrapnel kicked up by an artillery shell, Streeten would spend much of 1943 in a hospital in Egypt.  He returned to Aberdeen in 1944, to pass his exam and collect his M.A.

Unable to return to active service, Streeten enrolled at Balliol College, Oxford in late 1944, to study economics.  He came under the tutelage of and Thomas Balogh, Michal Kalecki, and others.  In 1948, Streeten was made lecturer and elected fellow of Balliol College, where he would remain attached for the next two decades.  He was drawn to development economics principally by the influence of Balogh and Myrdal.

In 1964, Streeten (along with Seers) joined the newly-established Ministry of Overseas Development.  In 1966, Streeten joined the University of Sussex, where he would found the Institute for Development Studies and, in 1973, the journal World Development.  Streeten has also worked with several UN agencies, notably on the UNDP in the compilation of its Human Development Report.

 

  

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Major Works of Paul Streeten

  • "Reserve Capacity and the Kinked Demand Curve", 1950, RES.
  • "Elasticity Optimism and Pessimism in International Trade", 1954, Economia Internazionale
  • "Programs and Prognoses", 1954, QJE
  • "Productivity and the Balance of Trade", 1955, Bulletin of Oxford IAS.
  • "Growth, The Terms of Trade and the Balance of Trade", with J. Black, 1957 Economie Appliquee
  • Economic Integration: Aspects and problems, 1961.
  • The Frontiers of Development Studies, 1972.
  • "The Limits of Development Research", 1974, World Development
  • "Policies Towards Multinationals", 1975,World Development
  • "New Strategies for Development", with F. Stewart, 1976, Oxford EP
  • Foreign Investment, Transnationals and Developing Countries, with S. Lall, 1977.
  • "Basic Needs: Premises and Priorities" 1979, J of Policy Making [pdf]
  • Development Perspectives, 1981.
  • First Things First: Meeting basic human needs in developing countries, with others, 1981.
  • "Approaches to a New International Economic Order", 1982, World Development
  • "Basic Needs: Some unsettled questions", 1984 [pdf]
  • "Development Dichotomies", 1983, World Development
  • "Human Development, means and ends", 1994, AER [pdf]
  • Thinking about Development, 1997
  • Thoughts about Development: Which are mere fads, which are here to stay?, 2005 [pdf]

 
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Resources on Paul Streeten 

 

 
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