The Theory of Economic Growth: A Survey

Our purpose is to survey the contributions that have been made to the theory of economic growth in the last twenty-five years and endeavour to place them in relation to one another. It will be clear that the survey cannot hope to cover all of growth economics. We have accordingly restricted ourselves in the following ways: (1) We take up the story with Harrod’s famous article of 1939 and make no attempt to cover writings before this date. The seriousness of this omission is evident when one recalls that this decision not only excludes the classical economists but also Wicksell, Marshall, Robertson and Cassel. (2) We restrict ourselves (except for occasional references) to the theoretical literature. Our central concern is with models of economic growth. The authors of these models have naturally had in mind as a rule that their work should contribute to an understanding of the way economies actually grow over time; but this approach to growth theory is none the less different from that which would be used if the immediate purpose was to provide the best available explanation of the variety of historical growth experiences.2 (3) While it has been found appropriate to give some summary of results in the theory of efficient accumulation, the problems of optimum saving and the development of backward countries have not been considered. (4) No discussion is presented of growth theory as applied to international trade.