Beschreibung:
The chapter presents the preface of the publication Handbook of Economic Growth, which is designed to communicate the state of modern growth research. The handbook consists of 28 chapters, and is divided into six parts. Part I lays out the theoretical foundations. The first chapter surveys the neo -classical and AK models of growth. The second chapter develops the Schumpeterian growth model with quality-improving innovations and confronts it with new empirical evidence. The third chapter surveys the literature that built upon Paul Romer's product variety model. The fourth chapter looks at the growth in the long run and analyzes the interplay between technical change and demographic transitions, and explores the issue of transitions between different growth regimes. The next chapter analyzes the central role of economic and political institutions, and describes the mechanisms, whereby the dynamics of political institutions interacts with the dynamics of economic institutions and that of income inequality. The following chapter focuses on the emergence and existence of poverty traps, a question of particular importance in development contexts. The final chapter further explores the interplay of growth economics and development economics, with particular attention to how factors such as credit market constraints and intersectoral heterogeneity can explain outstanding puzzles concerning capital flows and interest rates, which are major elements of the growth process.