Background
MYINT, Hla was born in 1920 in Bassein, Burma.
MYINT, Hla was born in 1920 in Bassein, Burma.
After obtaining a Doctor of Philosophy in economics at the London School of Economics (with a thesis on the Theories of Welfare Economics), he taught as an economics professor at the University of Rangoon, from 1945 to 1952.
He stressed, long before it became popular, the importance export-orientation as the most useful "engine of growth". He also served as the university"s rector from 1958 to 1962. He was an Economic Adviser to the post-independent Burmese government"s National Planning Department and the State Agricultural Bank"s committee in the 1950s.
Hla Myint was influential in the National Planning Committee"s drafting of an outward-looking economic development plan for the country, which was rejected in favor of an insular, inward-looking plan.
Hla Myint served as Emeritus Professor of Economics, teaching development economics, at the London School of Economics from 1966 to 1985. As an example, in 1972 he authored an important study supported by the Asian Development Bank, Southeast Asia"s economy: Development Policy in the 1970s, which emphasised the importance of an export-oriented development strategy for the region.
In that study, he argued that the existing import substitution policies commonly followed in Southeast Asia should be replaced by a new industrialization policy based on the expansion of manufactured exports.
(Myint's careful study of the theoretical development of w...)
The theory of underdeveloped economies especially the effect of external economic forces on the internal economic organisation of these countries. The relationship between economic theory including the history of economic thought and development economics. The development and application of a theory of economic organisation and institutions to the underdeveloped countries.