第二次世界大战以后，研究第三世界国家经济发展问题的发展经济学成为西方经济学的重要分支之一。在为这门学科作出重大贡献的经济学家中，美国普林斯顿大学教授、1979年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者之一——威廉·阿瑟·刘易斯占有十分重要的地位。

刘易斯于1915年1月23日出生于西印度群岛圣卢西亚岛（原为英属殖民地，现已独立）的一个黑人家庭。他就学于英国伦敦经济学院，1940年获博士学位，先后在伦敦经济学院、曼彻斯特大学、西印度大学、普林斯顿大学任教。1986年从普林斯顿大学退休，住在巴巴多斯岛西印度大学附近，1991年去世。此外，他还担任过加纳、尼日利亚、西印度群岛等发展中国家与地区的政府顾问，担任过加勒比地方开发银行及联合国一些专门机构的要职。这些实际工作大大丰富了他的研究内容。

刘易斯把自己的学术生涯分为三个时期。他说：“我对经济学的研究曾从三个方面入手，初期致力于各项工业的研究；旋则对若干发展中国家有所探讨；近来锐意于国际经济的历史演变。”436555950年代之前，是刘易斯学术生涯的第一个时期。这时，他研究一般经济理论，涉猎的范围较广，主要著作有《今日经济问题》，《英国工业中的垄断》、《1913—1939年经济概论》、《经济计划原理》、《固定费用》等。50年代后，刘易斯专门研究经济发展问题，主要著作有《劳动无限供给条件下的经济发展》和《经济增长理论》。这两部著作奠定了他经济发展理论的基础，在发展经济学中也占有十分重要的地位。60年代之后，刘易斯研究的重点是发展中国家与发达国家国际经济关系的问题，主要著作有《热带贸易概论：1883—1965年》、《外援的发展》、《1883—1913年热带的发展》、《国际经济秩序的演变》、《发展中国家与汇率的稳定》，以及本书。

刘易斯非常重视国际经济关系中发达国家与发展中国家关系格局的形成，及其对发展中国家经济发展的影响。他认为，在现存的国际经济关系中，是发展中国家依赖着发达国家。这也就是说，“在过去一百年间，发展中世界的生产增长速度依存于发达世界的生产增长速度。当发达世界增长迅速时，发展中世界也增长迅速；当发达世界增长减慢时，发展中世界的增长也减慢”4365560。刘易斯详细分析了这种依赖关系的形成、发展及其对发展中国家的影响。他认为，这种依赖关系的形成对发展中国家的经济发展有一定的促进作用。但是，从长远看，这种依赖关系是不利于发展中国家的。因此，发展中国家应摆脱这种依赖关系，建立自己独立的民族经济。

1977年3月刘易斯在普林斯顿大学为纪念美籍奥地利经济学家熊彼特而设立的杰韦讲座上以建立国际经济新秩序为中心作了两次演讲。该演讲1978年以《国际经济秩序的演变》为题出版。这本书受到了国际经济学界的重视，美国著名经济学家金德伯格认为在这本书中“刘易斯教授以卓越的见识透彻地对本世纪的世界经济作出了权威性的解释”。而对这本书的基本观点所进行的更详细、更全面、更深刻的分析，则是在1978年出版的《增长与波动：1870—1913年》一书中。《增长与波动》总结了刘易斯关于国际经济关系的研究成果，而《国际经济秩序的演变》则是《增长与波动》的提要。因此，要了解刘易斯对本世纪世界经济所作出的权威性解释，就必须阅读《增长与波动》一书。

刘易斯在分析国际经济关系时把世界分为“核心国”与“外围国”。核心国指英国、法国、德国、美国四个发达国家，外围国则是指其他国家。他认为，在19世纪中期核心国首先成功地进行了工业革命，这就向外围国提供了两种选择：一种是模仿核心国直接进行工业革命，另一种是通过与核心国进行贸易来为工业革命创造条件。各外围国对核心国的挑战作出了不同的反应。有些国家或者通过模仿，或者通过贸易，实现了工业化，而大多数国家则没能利用核心国的发展这个机会，从而使经济处于落后状态。当前的国际经济关系，正是在19世纪最后25年间形成的，现在发展中国家对发达国家的依赖关系也是这种历史上核心国与外围国关系的延续。

《增长与波动》分析了1870年到1913年之间核心国与外围国经济的发展及其相互关系。刘易斯把核心国的工业生产增长作为外围国经济发展的发动机，作为一种向外围国提出的挑战，而把外围国的经济发展作为对核心国这一挑战的应战。围绕这一中心问题刘易斯分析了这四十多年间核心国工业的增长与波动，以及外围国经济发展中的种种问题。关于本书的内容我不想多介绍，读者可以自己去阅读。我只想说，这本书有它自己的一些特点：第一，本书的内容是1870年到1913年的经济史，但作者是站在现实的角度来分析历史的，因此，使人能感到它的强烈的现实意义。第二，作者在写法上把历史、经济理论、统计资料三者有机地结合到了一起，这样既不是罗列历史事实，又不是抽象地讲理论，也不是烦琐地考证统计资料，而是以理论为纲，让历史与资料说话。第三，作者对许多问题都提出了自己独特的观点，例如，在殖民主义对经济发展的影响上，他既没有像某些西方经济学家那样鼓吹殖民主义给落后地区带来了文明，又没有像某些民族主义经济学家那样把殖民地的落后完全归咎于殖民主义，他认为殖民主义在不同地区有不同的影响，要具体分析。他对许多问题都作出了有特色的分析，能给人以启迪。当然，读者在阅读本书中也许还会发现许多更为重要的特点。

《增长与波动》一书在西方引起了极大的重视。瑞典皇家科学院颁发诺贝尔经济学奖的公报中把该书列为刘易斯最重要的代表作之一。美国经济学家罗纳德·芬德莱对本书的评价是：“这是一本真正的杰出著作，只有刘易斯才能写出这样的著作。还没有一个人具有写这本书所需要的品质的结合，这种结合包括敏锐的理论洞察力、丰富的历史知识和收集与分析统计资料上的辛勤劳动。其结果是理论、历史和统计的结合，这种结合只有熊彼特才能与之相比。”4365561读完了该书，你就会感到这个评价并不是夸大其词。

我国是一个发展中国家，当前也面临着如何应对新技术挑战的问题。历史的经验值得注意。我想读者从这本书中一定会得到许多有益的启发。

一九八六年十二月

After the second world war, development economics, which studies the economic development of third world countries, has become one of the important branches of western economics. Among the economists who have made great contributions to this discipline, William Arthur lewis, a professor at Princeton university and one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1979, holds a very important position. Lewis was born on January 23, 1915, into a black family on the west Indies island of st. Lucia. He studied at the London school of economics and received his doctorate in 1940. He taught at the London school of economics, the university of Manchester, the university of the west Indies and Princeton university. He retired from Princeton university in 1986 and lived near the university of the west Indies in Barbados, where he died in 1991. In addition, he has served as a government adviser to developing countries and regions such as Ghana, Nigeria and the west Indies, and held important positions in the Caribbean development bank and some specialized agencies of the United Nations. These practical works greatly enriched his research content. Lewis divides his academic career into three periods. He said: "my research on economics started from three aspects. The guidelines cover several developing countries; It has recently focused on the historical evolution of the international economy. Before the 1950s, it was the first period of lewis' academic career. At that time, he studied general economic theory and covered a wide range. His major works include economic problems today, monopoly in British industry, introduction to economy 1913-1939, principles of economic planning, fixed expenses, etc. After the 1950s, lewis specialized in the issue of economic development, the main books are "labor infinite supply of economic development" and "economic growth theory". These two works laid the foundation of his economic development theory and played an important role in development economics. After the '60 s, lewis research focuses on developing countries and developed countries on international economic relations, the main works are "introduction to tropical trade: 1883-1965", "the development of the foreign aid", "1883-1913 years of the development of the tropical, the evolution of the international economic order", the developing countries and the exchange rate stable, and the book. Lewis attaches great importance to the formation of the relationship pattern between developed and developing countries in international economic relations and its impact on the economic development of developing countries. He believes that in the existing international economic relations, it is the developing countries that depend on the developed countries. That is to say, "over the past 100 years, the growth of production in the developing world has depended on the growth of production in the developed world. When the developed world grew rapidly, so did the developing world; When the growth of the developed world slows down, the growth of the developing world also slows down "4365560. Lewis analyzes in detail the formation and development of this dependency and its impact on developing countries. He believes that the formation of this dependence on the economic development of developing countries have a certain role in promoting. However, in the long run, such dependence is detrimental to developing countries. Therefore, developing countries should get rid of this dependence and establish their own independent national economy.

in March 1977, lewis gave two lectures centering on the establishment of a new international economic order at the gervais lecture held at Princeton university in memory of the austrian-american economist schumpeter. The lecture was published in 1978 under the title evolution of the international economic order. This book has attracted the attention of the international economics circle. The famous American economist kindberg believes that in this book, "professor lewis gives an authoritative explanation of the world economy in this century with excellent insight and thorough understanding". A more detailed, comprehensive and profound analysis of the book's basic ideas was carried out in the book growth and fluctuation: 1870-1913 published in 1978. Growth and fluctuation summarizes lewis' research results on international economic relations, while evolution of international economic order is the synopsis of growth and fluctuation. To understand lewis's definitive account of the world economy in this century, therefore, one must read growth and volatility. Lewis divided the world into "core countries" and "peripheral countries" in the analysis of international economic relations. The core refers to Britain, France, Germany and the United States, and the periphery refers to other countries. In his view, in the mid-19th century, the core countries first successfully carried out the industrial revolution, which provided two options for the peripheral countries: one was to directly imitate the core countries to carry out the industrial revolution, and the other was to create conditions for the industrial revolution by trading with the core countries. Peripheral countries have responded differently to the challenges of the core. Some countries industrialized either through imitation or through trade, while most countries failed to take advantage of the development opportunities of core countries, thus leaving their economies in a backward state. The current international economic relations were formed in the last 25 years of the 19th century, and the dependence of developing countries on developed countries is also a continuation of the relationship between core countries and peripheral countries in history.

growth and fluctuation analyzes the economic development of core countries and peripheral countries and their relationship between 1870 and 1913. Lewis took the growth of industrial production in the core countries as the engine of the economic development of the peripheral countries, as a challenge to the peripheral countries, and took the economic development of the peripheral countries as a challenge to the core countries. Around this central issue, lewis analyzed the industrial growth and fluctuations in the core countries and various problems in the economic development of the peripheral countries over the past four decades. I don't want to tell you much about this book, but you can read it yourself. I just want to say that this book has some characteristics of its own: first, the content of this book is the economic history from 1870 to 1913, but the author analyzes history from the perspective of reality, so that people can feel its strong realistic significance. Second, the author organically combines history, economic theory and statistical data in writing, which is neither to list historical facts, nor to talk about theories in an abstract way, nor to conduct detailed textual research on statistical data. Third, the author of many problems, put forward their own point of view, for example, on the colonial influence on economic development, he does not like some western economists advocated colonialism brought civilization to backward area, and not, as some economists that the colonial nationalism behind entirely blame colonialism, he thinks that colonialism in different regions have different influence, be specific analysis. His characteristic analysis of many problems is enlightening. Of course, the reader may find many more important features in this book.

growth and volatility has attracted great attention in the west. The proceedings of the Swedish academy of sciences, which awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, listed the book as one of lewis's most important masterpieces. Ronald findlay, an American economist, said of it: "this is a truly remarkable book, and only lewis could have written it. No one has yet acquired the requisite combination of intellectual insight, historical knowledge and the painstaking work of collecting and analysing statistics. The result is a combination of theory, history and statistics that only schumpeter could match. After reading the book, you will feel that this comment is not an exaggeration.

China is a developing country, which is also facing the problem of how to deal with the challenges of new technologies. The experience of history is noteworthy. I think the readers will get many useful inspirations from this book.

December 1986