The Nature of Economic Growth: An Alternative Framework for Understanding the Performance of Nations

This concise book by one of the leading scholars in development economics is developed from a series of lectures given to masters students and will serve as an excellent introduction to the principles of growth and development theory. The author presents conventional wisdom with a critical eye and charts development economics as it has evolved from Adam Smith to ‘new’ or endogenous growth theory. Thirlwall is critical of the latter, and its predecessor neo-classical growth theory, and tries to put back demand as a driving force in growth theory. He argues that in an open developing economy one of the major constraints is the availability of foreign exchange to pay for imports, so that export growth which relaxes a balance of payments constraint on demand becomes a crucial determinant of overall growth performance. Demand creating its own supply in a growth context, rather than the pre-Keynesian view of supply creating its own demand, provides an alternative framework to the neo-classical one for understanding the differential growth performance of nations. This highly original book will be essential reading for all students and scholars of development and growth economics.