ABSTRACT
The second half of the twentieth century saw a substantial rise in the number of small states in the global economy, as a result of both decolonisation and the disintegration of larger states. The strong growth performance of many of these small states appears to belie the economic orthodoxy of ‘big is beautiful’ and calls into question the critical role generally assigned to increasing returns to scale in determining the ‘viable’ economic size of a nation state. This growth success, achieved in spite of their small size, suggests that the analysis of the determinants of the economic performance of small states and improved understanding of their growth strategies may generate useful potential insights to other, larger, developing states.
