Erik S. Reinert

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Erik Steenfeldt Reinert (born 15 February 1949) is a Norwegian entrepreneur and heterodox economist.

Reinert was born in Oslo, attended the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland (where he studied economics), Harvard University (MBA), and Cornell University (Ph.D.). Already during his studies, he spent time in Latin America, working with a community development project in the Peruvian Andes, as well as in private industry. In 1972 he founded and later developed a small industrial firm (color sampling to the paint and automotive industries) in Bergamo, Italy. Adding production plants also in Norway and Finland, the company had become the largest of its kind in Europe when Reinert sold it in 1991.

Reinert then worked for the STEP group in Oslo (1991-1995) and later became Director of Research of the Norsk Investorforum, a think tank set up by large Norwegian corporations (1995-2000). He also held a part-time position at The Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), a research institution established by the University of Oslo. In 2000, he became the Executive Chairman of The Other Canon Foundation, a small center and network for heterodox economics research. Since 2004, he is Professor of Technology Governance and Development Strategies at the Tallinn University of Technology in Tallinn, Estonia. Since 2005, he also serves as Senior Research Fellow at NORISS, the new Oslo-based Norwegian Institute of Strategic Studies.

Reinert’s research interests and publications focus around the theory of uneven development and the history of economic thought and policy. As a consultant, Reinert's emphasis is on industrial and economic policy, the preconditions and management of innovations, and the relations between financial and production capital. Reinert’s ideas are obviously controversial in libertarian and neo-liberal circles in Norway, but also in Marxist ones. Representatives of those views, accordingly, have challenged his arguments in the daily press and sparked an interesting controversy about national economic development in Norway.

[edit] Selected publications

How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (2007), London: Constable & Robinson.
The Origins of Economic Development. How Schools of Economic Thought have Addressed Development (2005), co-edited with KS Jomo. London: Zed / New Delhi: Tulika.
Global Økonomi. Hvordan de rike ble rike og hvorfor fattige blir fattigere (Global Economy. How the rich got rich and why the poor get poorer) (2004). Oslo: Spartacus. Serbian translation (2006) Belgrade: Cigoja.
Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (2004), ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

[edit] Downloadable recent working papers

"Development and Social Goals: Balancing Aid and Development to Prevent 'Welfare Colonialism'", United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs, DESA Working Paper No. 14, 2006. Portuguese translation in Oikos. Revista de Economia Heterodoxa 4(4), 2005, pp. 45-67. Download.
"Evolutionary Economics, Classical Development Economics, and the History of Economic Policy: A Plea for Theorizing by Inclusion" (2006). Download.
"The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe?" (with Rainer Kattel), PRAXIS Working Paper No. 17/2004. Download.
"How Rich Nations got Rich. Essays in the History of Economic Policy" (2004). Download.