Rostow's stages of growth

The Rostovian take-off model (also called "Rostow's Stages of Growth") is one of the major historical models of economic growth. It was developed by W. W. Rostow. The model postulates that economic modernization occurs in five basic stages, of varying length.^[1]

Traditional society
Preconditions for take-off
Take-off
Drive to maturity
Age of High mass consumption

Rostow asserts that countries go through each of these stages fairly linearly, and set out a number of conditions that were likely to occur in investment, consumption and social trends at each state. Not all of the conditions were certain to occur at each stage, however, and the stages and transition periods may occur at varying lengths from country to country, and even from region to region.^[2]

Rostow's model is one of the more structuralist models of economic growth, particularly in comparison with the 'backwardness' model developed by Alexander Gerschenkron. The two models are not necessarily mutually exclusive, however, and many countries seem to follow both models rather adequately.

Beyond the structured picture of growth itself, another important part of the model is that economic take-off must initially be led by a few individual sectors. This belief echoes David Ricardo’s comparative advantage thesis and criticizes Marxist revolutionaries push for economic self-reliance in that it pushes for the 'initial' development of only one or two sectors over the development of all sectors equally. This became one of the important concepts in the theory of modernization in the social evolutionism.

^ "The Five Stages-Of-Growth—A Summary". The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge University Press. 1991. pp. 4–16. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511625824.005. ISBN 9780521400701.
^ Rostow emphasizes in Stages that "the stages of growth are an arbitrary and limited way of looking at the sequence of modern history: ... to dramatize not merely the uniformities in the sequence of modernization but also--and equally--the uniqueness of each nation's experience."

[auto-1] "The Five Stages-Of-Growth—A Summary". The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge University Press. 1991. pp. 4–16. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511625824.005. ISBN 9780521400701.

[2] Rostow emphasizes in Stages that "the stages of growth are an arbitrary and limited way of looking at the sequence of modern history: ... to dramatize not merely the uniformities in the sequence of modernization but also--and equally--the uniqueness of each nation's experience."

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