The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
This paper explores the links between economic growth and human development, identifying two chains, one from economic growth to human development, and the other, conversely, from human development to economic growth. The various links in each chain are explored, together with a review of some existing empirical material on their importance.
The paper examines the significance of the relationships, for the chains as a whole and for particular links in them, with the help of cross-country statistics for the period 1970-92. It finds that there exists a strong positive relationship in both directions and that public expenditure on social services and female education are especially important links determining the strength of the relationship between economic growth and human development, while the investment rate and income distribution are significant links in determining the strength of the relationship between human development and economic growth. The existence of these chains gives rise to the potential for virtuous or vicious cycles of development, with good or bad performance on HD and economic growth reinforcing each other over time.
The paper concludes by classifying the actual performance of developing countries into these virtuous and vicious cycles, as well as identifying lop- sided performers, with good performance in one dimension but not the other, and explores how country classification can change over time. We find that lop-sided development almost never persists: countries which are initially lop-sided favoring economic growth always lapse into the vicious category; but countries where HD is favored can move into the virtuous category. This has strong sequencing implications, implying that, while ideally both HD and economic growth should be jointly promoted, HD should be given priority where a choice is necessary.