ECONOMICS FOR DEVELOPMENT
Economic development is the development of economic wealth of countries or regions for the well-being of their inhabitants. This is the short definition of Economic Development.
Economic Growth & development are two different terms used in economics.Generally speaking economic development refers to the problems of underdeveloped countries and economic growth to those of developed countries.
By Economic Growth we simply mean increase in per capita income or increase in GNP. In recent literature, the term economic growth refers to sustained increase in a country's output of goods and services, or more precisely product per capita. Output is generally measured in terms of GNP.
The term economic development is far more comprehensive. It implies progressive changes in the socio-economic structure of a country. Viewed in this way economic development Involves a steady decline in agricultural shares in GNP and continuous increase in shares of industries, trade banking construction and services. Further whereas economic growth merely refers to rise in output; development implies change in technological and institutional organization of production as well as in distributive pattern of income.
Hence, compared to the objective of development, economic growth is easy realize. By a larger mobilization of resources and raising their productivity, output level can be raised. The process of development is far more extensive. Apart from a rise in output, it involves changes in composition of output, shift in the allocation of productive resources, and elimination or reduction of poverty, inequalities and unemployment.
In the words of Amartya Sen "Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over activity of repressive states."
Economic development is not possible without growth but growth is possible without development because growth is just increase in GNP It does not have any other parameters to it. Development can be conceived as Multi-Dimensional process or phenomena. If there is increase in GNP more than the increase in per capita Income then we can say that Development is possible. When given conditions of population improves then we can say that this is also an indicator of economic Development.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CONCEPTS
Traditionally economists have made little if any distinction between economic growth and economic development using the terms almost synonymously.
As a concept, Economic development can be seen as a complex multi-dimensional concept involving improvements in human well-being, however defined Critics point out that GDP is a narrow measure of economic welfare that does not take account of important non-economic aspects eg more leisure time, access to health & education, environment, freedom or social justice. Economic growth is a necessary but insufficient condition for economic development.
Professor Dudley Seers argues development is about outcomes ie development occurs with the reduction and elimination of poverty, inequality and unemployment within a growing economy.

Professor Michael Todaro sees three objectives of development:
Producing more life sustaining necessities such as food shelter & health care and broadening their distribution Raising standards of living and individual self esteem Expanding economic and social choice and reducing fear.
The UN has developed a widely accepted set of indices to measure development against a mix of composite indicators:
UN's Human Development Index (HDI) measures a country's average achievements in three basic dimensions of human development: life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income ($PPP per person).
UN's Human Poverty Index (HPI) measure deprivation using % of people expected to die before age 40, % of illiterate adults, % of people without access to health services and safe water and the % of underweight children under five.
Development economics emerged as a branch of economics because economists after World War II become concerned about the low standard of living in so many countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. There are, however, important reservations in making development economics as branch of economics as opposed to the ultimate objective of the study of economics. The first approaches to development economics assumed that the economies of the less developed countries (LDCs) were so different from the developed countries that basic economics could not explain the behavior of LDC economies. Such approaches produced some interesting and even elegant economic models, but these models failed to explain the patterns of no growth, slow growth, or growth and retrogression found in the LDCs.
Slowly the field swung back towards more acceptance that opportunity cost, supply and demand, and so on apply to the LDCs also. This cleared the ground for better approaches. Traditional economics, however, still couldn't reconcile the weak and failed growth patterns. What was required to explain poor growth were macro and institutional factors beyond micro concepts of the firm, individual preferences, and endowments? Institutional analysis has been able to explain the poor growth patterns much better than the market failure theories did. However, there is no generally accepted institutional theory of economic development that a large share of development economists agree upon. There is not even agreement on how important institutional factors are.