Following three turbulent decades, there are signs that vigorous
economic growth is attaining renewed momentum in North
America and Europe. Many of the Asian "tiger" nations, on the
other hand, have suffered catastrophic reverses in what had
previously been extraordinarily successful growth experiences.
Because growth in the output of goods and services is almost syn-
onymous with increases in the material well-being of nations' citi-
zens, the sources of economic growth and the prospects for sus-
taining it through the twenty-first century are matters of
extraordinary interest to business, trade union, and government
leaders alike.

After struggling with the question for more than two centuries,
economists have begun to advance new theories of how economic
growth occurs and what conditions its sustenance demands. To
explore these new perspectives, the British--North American Com-
mittee (BNAC) asked one of its members, Professor F. M. Scherer
of the John E. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University,

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