Perspectives on Economic Growth

Considering the new possibilities offered by endogenous growth models and the improvement of data information, new variables have been introduced in the analysis of economic growth. But in spite of this important effort to develop a wider and more complete perspective of economic growth process, other kinds of relations and factors must be included. And this is the main goal of this book. In the next chapters, authors analyse a set of variables or factors that the new perspective of the economic growth must include and the canonical models don’t consider. The goal is to show that there are not only quantitative but also qualitative variables and factors that are growth enhancing. Traditionally, for instance, literature has studied the effects of income distribution on growth, but it does not consider environmental constraints in the process. Or it is important to consider the effects of social capital not just physical capital or human capital on the economic growth process. The role of the institutions is very important in this area. Therefore, the authors determine the effects of these variables on economic growth process and show new possibilities to the policy makers in the design of their economic policies.