Southern Europe and Underdevelopment: The OECD and the Mediterranean Region in the Post-War Period

In the immediate post-war period and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the OEEC-OECD constituted an intergovernmental forum for determining policy for the reconstruction and integration of European economies, and addressing significant issues of underdevelopment in individual member states. Using previously unstudied documents from the OECD's Paris archives, this book illuminates the role of the OECD in this period and how its interventions addressed and contributed to the issue of European development and integration in the regional dimension.

Focusing on six Mediterranean countries, the book reconstructs a forgotten chapter of European development policy through archival research, revealing how these regions served as early testing grounds for development economics, regional planning, and educational reform. By highlighting initiatives like the Vanoni Plan, the Mediterranean Regional Project, and the work of the European Productivity Agency, the study reframes the OECD not just as a forum for wealthy nations, but as a critical space where the 'southern question' of underdevelopment was theorized and acted upon. With implications for our broader understanding of the history of international organizations, this book is a fascinating resource for scholars of economic history and historical political economy, as well as development studies and the economics of education.