ABSTRACT
The mere mention of the term “economic growth” conjures up different images, hopes, and complaints to different people. To the mass of mankind struggling at the margin of subsistence in the world’s less-developed economies, the prospect of economic growth is literally the most important issue facing those individuals and societies. Economic growth implies to some people a variety of untoward consequences that occasionally accompany growth, such as environmental pollution and congestion. Even the most vehement opponent of traditional economic growth cannot object to economic growth which includes value of these nontraditional goods and services and which nets out the cost of environmental and other factors. Rapid economic growth over long periods is a relatively recent phenomenon and a blessing for mankind. The primary beneficiaries of economic growth are workers whose wages increase as their productivity advances. Many economists have long believed that such private incentives were quite unresponsive to tax or inflation-induced reductions in their real net rates of return.
