Some philosophical and epistemological issues relevant to exports and economic development

This paper provides an overview of the main philosophical positions related to exports and economic development, beginning with a brief reference to the existing main epistemological approaches. In economics and especially in development studies, the empirical evidence is hardly unanimous and this is due to the wide range of possible determinants of growth and statistical techniques. Furthermore, most of the empirical studies do not take into account the structural differences between countries and for this reason the empirical evidence seems to provide little help in designing policies for accelerating economic development. Therefore, a more holist approach would be more effective in understanding the development process and its main factors.