TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jovanovic,Boyan
TI  - Growth Theory
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7468
PY  - 2000
Y2  - January 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7468
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7468.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Boyan Jovanovic
New York University
Department of Economics
19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY  10012
Tel: 212/998-8953
Fax: 212/995-4186
E-Mail: Boyan.Jovanovic@nyu.edu
AB  - Growth theory offers two plausible explanations of growth. One stresses the supply of productive ideas and holds that the industrial revolution had to wait until we had thought up enough inventions to lift us into the era of modern growth. It says, roughly, that the growth of living standards depends on the growth of science. The other explanation stresses incentives: Growth could begin only when hard work and business enterprise were free of heavy taxation, of social stigma and of other interference by the government and the church. The first branch of theory is well developed; it is the second that now challenges the growth economist to explain not just growth, but the evolution of political and religious institutions and social attitudes as well.
ER  -