ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: On Rostow's 'Stages' Thesis and Explanation of 'Take-Off' Growth
Author: Smith Matthew
This paper is concerned with the ‘stages of economic growth’ thesis and the explanation of ‘take-off’ growth developed in the 1950s by Walt Rostow (1916-2003), economic historian and development economist. The main focus is on Rostow’s explanation of the ‘take-off’, being the decisive stage in economic development of a nation from a state of un-development to a state of development on the path to becoming an advanced nation with high income per capita. In section 2 of the paper we examine Rostow’s historically-based ‘stages of economic growth’ model of which the ‘take-off’ stage is central to its explanatory purpose. Then, in section 3, we examine the ‘theoretical apparatus’ developed by Rostow in The Process of Economic Growth (1952) to principally explain the take-off stage of growth. In conclusion, section 4 critically appraises Rostow’s stages thesis and his explanation of growth, showing that its insights can be best appreciated by reference to a coherent theoretical framework provided by the demand-led approach to explaining growth.
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