Puzzles of Economic Growth | All Books sku-38311069

Puzzles of Economic Growth is a paperback in the Directions in Development - Public Sector Governance series, listed in All Books under SKU sku-38311069. It examines why seemingly similar countries have had different rates of economic growth.

Its comparisons include Australia and New Zealand, despite New Zealand's reputation for free-market reform; Austria, with its persistently large state-enterprise sector, and Switzerland, which Austria has nearly caught up with; and Estonia and Slovenia, including their records of systemic transformation.

It asks why Mexico is poorer than Spain after being wealthier into the 1960s, and why Venezuela fell behind Chile despite having a higher per capita income than Norway in 1950 and remaining a major oil exporter. The book also compares Costa Rica with Puerto Rico, whose rapid development slowed in the 1970s and whose economy is now far below those of comparable islands.

Further questions concern why China outstripped India, why Pakistan lagged Indonesia despite Indonesia's severe 1997-98 crisis, and why the Dominican Republic received several dozen times more tourists than Haiti, even before the 2010 earthquake. The two countries share an island. The book uses these cases to investigate how differences in economic growth arise.