The Rediscovery of the Concept of ‘Structural Change’ in Developing Economies: Transitions, Cumulative Causation and Institutions
Résumé
The paper elaborates a critical analysis of the increasing attention given to the concept of ‘structural change’ in low-income countries within international financial institutions. It shows the relevance of the concepts built by regulation theory for such a critical assessment of ‘structural change’, in particular accumulation regimes, transitions and institutional forms. It also enriches this critique in proposing a conceptualisation of institutions, which is centred on cumulative causation and the stability of some beliefs, norms and institutions, and on the latter’s effects on regime transitions – or, on the contrary, on the absence of transition and stabilisation in given regimes, as is the case in most commodity-dependent low-income countries.