My Economic
MOTURI KERRY MERVYN
X74/34459/2011
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
XEA: 301 DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
ROSTOWS GROWTH THEORY
Walt Rostow was an American historian who tried to explain process of economic development through a historical approach. He is motivated by what he terms as the failure of economic theory. He explained the development process using 5 distinctive stages and for a stage to replace the other there must be structural changes to necessitate this movement from lower levels of development to higher ones.
Walt Rostow in his theory clearly brought out five distinctive stages of growth in the following order: * The traditional stage * Pre-condition to take-off stage * Take-off stage * Drive to maturity stage * The stage of High Mass consumption
Kuznets criticizes Rostow and he adds that the theory is a bit blurry. Kuznets states that
Simon Kuznets has criticized Rostow's stages of Growth Theory in the following way which may be quoted below: * Kuznets argued that Rostow made the mistake of declaring that agrarian revolution was not in the traditional stage but in the pre-conditions stage. This disturbs Kuznets since some of the characteristics of take-off stage and pre-condition to take off stage are the same and this creates confusion for scholars. Also the only transition that is not in both is the rise in investment by * According to Rostow, a leading sector is one which has its impact upon other sectors of the economy. "Leadership of a sector depends upon the origin of its growth in an autonomous impulse, not in response to other sectors in the country and upon the magnitude of its direct and indirect contributions to the country's economic growth. The autonomous impulse and the various types of contribution to growth differ in timing and identification and chronology of leading sectors requires-specification and evidence lacking in Rostow's discussion. * The analysis of the take-off and pre-conditions stages neglects
X74/34459/2011
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
XEA: 301 DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
ROSTOWS GROWTH THEORY
Walt Rostow was an American historian who tried to explain process of economic development through a historical approach. He is motivated by what he terms as the failure of economic theory. He explained the development process using 5 distinctive stages and for a stage to replace the other there must be structural changes to necessitate this movement from lower levels of development to higher ones.
Walt Rostow in his theory clearly brought out five distinctive stages of growth in the following order: * The traditional stage * Pre-condition to take-off stage * Take-off stage * Drive to maturity stage * The stage of High Mass consumption
Kuznets criticizes Rostow and he adds that the theory is a bit blurry. Kuznets states that
Simon Kuznets has criticized Rostow's stages of Growth Theory in the following way which may be quoted below: * Kuznets argued that Rostow made the mistake of declaring that agrarian revolution was not in the traditional stage but in the pre-conditions stage. This disturbs Kuznets since some of the characteristics of take-off stage and pre-condition to take off stage are the same and this creates confusion for scholars. Also the only transition that is not in both is the rise in investment by * According to Rostow, a leading sector is one which has its impact upon other sectors of the economy. "Leadership of a sector depends upon the origin of its growth in an autonomous impulse, not in response to other sectors in the country and upon the magnitude of its direct and indirect contributions to the country's economic growth. The autonomous impulse and the various types of contribution to growth differ in timing and identification and chronology of leading sectors requires-specification and evidence lacking in Rostow's discussion. * The analysis of the take-off and pre-conditions stages neglects