Right now, most Western economies are at a pivotal point in their histories. You read stories of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and South Africa, as well as several Asian and Latin American ‘tiger’ economies. Economies are all different and grow at different rates depending on their level of development. Like for a child, growth is good but its not continuous – you can grow a lot when you’re a teen, and then stop at 16.
Development is different as it involves a process of maturity and lasting change. For economies, this means society must be significantly changing and the economy is absorbing the growth effectively. Rostow devised an economic model – the ‘5 stages of economic growth‘ which illustrates well the changing structures economies/societies go through.
Heres the PDF PIIGSty Econ 101 #33 Eco Development and Growth
To be more specific…
But how we know if a country is ‘least developed’ and how can government encourage economic development? Simple really…
piigsty 