ABSTRACT
Since the 1950s economists and development experts have been trying to decipher what factors, actions, and/or policies, are behind spectacular performance in economic development by some countries, and lack of progress by others. The less developed countries (LDCs) were, as a whole, more or less at a similar stage of economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet at the advent of the twenty-first century, some of the LDCs, notably East Asian economies, joined the ranks of the newly industrialized countries (NICs), whereas others have made little progress in economic development.
