Rostow's Stages of Growth

Abstract

In this chapter we lay out a broad outline of Rostow’s Stages growth theory. Rostow in his seminal work identified five different stages of economic growth - the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. Interest in Rostow’s stages theory was in 1960s and persists even now as researchers are still intrigued by the ideas and notions laid out in Rostow’s theory (Costa et al. 2016 a,b; McCartney 2018; Solivetti 2005). Interestingly in today’s world, the theory is being applied to different contexts and scenarios such as application of theory to environment, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor etc (Kesgingoz, H. and Serkan 2016; McCartney 2018). The stages of growth theory covered a broader spectrum of issues ranging from economic, social and political to US-Russia (the then USSR) cold war and their dominance at the global level. In this chapter we restrict ourselves to economic aspects of stages theory only.