Simon Kuznets, Six Lectures on Economic Growth (1959)

Four Major Characteristics of MEG (Modern Economic Growth)

1. Application of Modern Scientific thought and technology to industry.

2. A sustained and rapid rise in real product per capita, usually combined with high-rates of population growth.

3. Rapid rates in the transformation of the industrial structure, essentially the movement of capital, workers and entrepreneurship out of agriculture and into manufacturing and services.

4. MEG takes place in the context of international trade.

W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (1965)

1. Traditional Society

2. Preconditions for take-off

a. appearence of modern science

b. spread of idea that economic progress is possible

c. scope of commerce widens, banks and other institutions appear

d. politically, an effective, centralized national state is constructed

3. The Take-Off

a. new industries expand rapidly

b. factory workers increase as do services to support them

c. a new class of entrepreneurs expands

d. savings rates increase and capital finds its way into the hands of entreprenuers

e, new techniques of agricultural productivity spread

4. The Drive to Maturity

a. 10-20% of national income is steadily invested

b. period of sustained if fluctuating economic growth

5. The Age of High Mass-Consumption == the Postmodern?