ECON 001A Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Walt Whitman Rostow, Capital Accumulation, Security Hacker
19 May 2020
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Document Summary
W. w rostow and the 5 stages of economic growth. Gerschenkron (her favorite): interested how countries industrialized and how they accumulated capital. Easier: more access to capital, development consultants, easy access to technology. More difficult: bigger gap to overcome to catch up. A ceiling exists on attainable output per head because modern technology is either not available or not applied. There is an external intrusion that shocks traditional society, drive towards capital accumulation. Old blocks are overcome, progress comes to expand and dominate. Takes two generations; one trajectory but different sectoral patterns. The level of backwardness (how far behind, what"s the distance between you and them and how long will it take for them to catch up) Timing and backwardness will largely determine the strength of the obstacles and hence the role of government and institutions to overcome these obstacles. Need institutions to extract and direct the capital.
