On The Facilitative Role of the Economist in Economic Development—Case Study of a Georgia Shrimp Harbor Investment

The major premise of this paper is rather simple, but hopefully provocative to those economists concerned with real world problems and willing to enter controversial situations. Economic development, as typically encountered, is often controversial. Seldom in the modern economy do we find a Pareto optimum development that makes some people better off while leaving no one worse off. Even when this ideal is realized in the long-run, lack of instantaneous adjustment to new parameters of development means that new investment or organizational change is threatening to someone. Furthermore, both those threatened by development and those who stand to gain may have recognized relative merits of a particular development long before it comes to an economist's attention. This speaks well of the free enterprise system, but may be disconcerting to the ivory tower economist whose hope is that “my results” will be used by other economists or decision-makers who will, in turn, produce development efforts. Although the domino theory may be valid, all too frequently the dominoes fail to fall because of the scarcity of practicing economists in active development efforts.