Thinking about Growth

• Editors' preface; Preface; Part I. Growth and the Economists: 1. Thinking about growth; 2. Economics of growth; Part II. Studies in Long-Term Growth: 3. Resource and Output Trends in the United States since 1870; 4. Economic growth in the United States: a review article; 5. Manpower, capital, and technology; 6. Rapid growth potential and its realization: the experience of capitalist economies in the postwar period; 7. Catching up, forging ahead, and falling behind; Part III. Long Swings in Economic Growth: 8. The nature and significance of Kuznets cycles; 9. The passing of the Kuznets cycle; Part IV. Growth and Welfare: 10. Economic goals and social welfare in the next generation; 11. Growing up in an affluent society; 12. The retreat from economic advance: changing ideas about economic progress; 13. Welfare quandaries and productivity concerns.

"The 13 essays assembled in this collection are the fruit of 40 years of study of the process of economic growth here [in the U.S.] and in Japan and Western Europe by a preeminent scholar of the subject. The first of the four parts deals with the change in economists' approach to the phenomenon over this period. Five essays in the second part analyze the proximate causes of long-term economic change, including the contributions of capital formation, education, and technology. The third part comprises two celebrated essays on long swings in U.S. economic growth. The final section deals with growth and welfare." Anna J. Schwartz in the Key Reporter