Abstract

Economic development has been the subject of debate in transforming developing counties through technology and economic models of development. The dominant models in economic development are the supply side model (Sachs) and Demand side model (Easterly). More recently we see the emergence of Randomized control trails as means to understand behavior of people and institutions. The two types of models these approaches suggest are top-down model of the former two versus bottom up model of the RCT approach. The experiences from these approaches while informing design of economic structures are not sufficient to address the problem of economic development. On the other hand, if we were to understand economic structures as designed structures one could fruitfully apply design based approaches to economic development. We propose the PSI framework that deals with the interactions of design problem space, social space and the institutional space as a means to analyze designed economic structures. We will use examples of successful and unsuccessful economic development project using the PSI framework. The cases will include solar lighting in villages in contrast to grid based lighting policy of the Indian Government and cooking stove design and eye care service design as illustrations of the use of PSI Framework