This blog post explores the challenges and possibilities of economic catch-up for developing countries, examining structural barriers, shifting global dynamics, and what meaningful development really means.
This guest post is by Professor Andy Sumner, Programme Leader for the online International Development MSc.
The big question: What does catch-up really mean?
For decades, scholars, policymakers and activists have asked a deceptively simple question: can developing countries catch up with richer countries? The answer, students discover in our online International Development MSc, depends not only on economics but also on politics, history, and how to conceptualise “development” itself.
At its core, the “catch-up” question is about convergence: Will countries in the Global South, with historically lower levels of income and industrialisation, eventually match the economic prosperity of the Global North? From the 1950s onwards, this idea informed a vision of development centred on industrialisation.
Yet history shows that this process has occurred in only a small number of cases. Countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, and more recently China, have moved closer to high-income status through sustained state-led industrial strategies. But the broader pattern across the Global South has been far more uneven.
Structural barriers in the global economy
One reason for this divergence lies in the structure of the global economy. Development economists in the 1950s and 1960s, such as W. Arthur Lewis and Raúl Prebisch and Celso Furtado argued that ‘late-developing’ countries face systemic disadvantages. These include dependence on commodity exports, terms-of-trade deterioration, and unequal integration into global markets dominated by multinational corporations from wealthier countries. These constraints remain visible today, albeit in new forms, such as financial volatility, unequal access to technology, and the power asymmetries of global production.
A second issue is that many of the development strategies once available to richer countries—such as protecting new industries with tariffs, large-scale planning, and generous state subsidies—have been curtailed by global trade rules, lending, and the rise of market-orientated policy since the 1980s. As a result, many countries in the Global South have experienced stalled development or found themselves locked into low-value production niches.
Rethinking the meaning of catch-up in development
Does this mean catch-up is impossible? Not necessarily. But it requires rethinking what catching up means and how it might occur. One view, still dominant in parts of the global development policy, sees catch-up as a process of improving governance, education, and infrastructure in ways that gradually improve living standards.
Yet another view—central to the tradition of Development Studies—is that real catching up involves economic transformation. That is, a fundamental restructuring of the economy, society and a country’s position in the global economy. This might involve industrialisation, yes, but also deeper changes to the state, labour markets, and domestic technological capabilities.
How the online International Development MSc equips students
On our online International Development MSc, students will explore these debates across five modules. In Foundations of Development Theory and Management, you will examine the historical trajectories of successful middle-income countries and the policy dilemmas they faced. In The Political Economy of Development, you will assess how macroeconomic instability and external shocks shape the development prospects of ‘late-developing’ countries. Our module on Intersectional Inequalities and Development will prompt students consider whose interests are served—or marginalised—by different development pathways.
Students confront the fact that development is not only an economic process but also a political one. Development itself is a contested concept. Is it economic growth? Is it human well-being? Or is it a legacy of colonial power that needs to be rethought altogether?
What makes development possible—and for whom?
So, can developing countries catch up? It depends on whether countries are able to deploy effective economic and social policy. And it depends on how progress is assessed.
Student on our MSc gain the analytical tools to engage critically with these questions. They learn to navigate diverse theoretical traditions, from classical development economics to postcolonial and decolonial critiques. And students develop practical skills in research and policy design, enabling them to contribute to the ongoing debates.
In a world where global inequalities are once again widening, and where the climate crisis and geopolitical realignments are reshaping development prospects, the question of catch-up is as urgent as ever.
Join us on the online MSc to explore how development is studied, how it is practised—and how it might be transformed:
