Development economics, and more generally development thinking, has changed significantly since it was conceived as a sub-discipline of economics at the outset of the Second World War. Since that time, one element of the debate has remained contentious: could the policies that led to successful and sustainable development in the early industrialising countries be repurposed as gold standards to follow in developing countries, or are the paths of developing countries sufficiently different to warrant alternative approaches? This chapter attempts to answer this question by reviewing how economic development has changed since 1945 and the subsequent creation of influential global economic institutions. It looks at changing approaches to development, critically reviews various periods and describes a long and complex learning process. To that end, it examines mainstream development thinking from the industrialised world, as well as “alternative” approaches that came out of regional experience in developing countries.