The volume consists of an overview and seven country studies, written by leading scholars from both developed and developing countries. The overview lays out a unifying framework for thinking about economic growth as a combination of two challenges. The “structural change challenge” is focused on moving resources from traditional lowproductivity activities into modern, more productive industries. The “fundamentals challenge” faced by policy makers in the developing world is about how best to develop broad capabilities such as human capital and infrastructure. While the two are inextricably linked, they are conceptually different, and making this distinction is one of the contributions of this book. The overview also includes a description of the common methodology used in the country studies, a discussion of data and measurement issues, and a synthesis of the findings.

该卷包括概述和七个国家的研究，由发达国家和发展中国家的主要学者撰写。《概览》为将经济增长视为两个挑战的结合提出了一个统一的框架。“结构变革挑战”的重点是将资源从传统的低生产率活动转移到现代生产力更高的行业。发展中国家决策者面临的“基本面挑战”是如何最好地发展人力资本和基础设施等广泛的能力。虽然这两者有着千丝万缕的联系，但它们在概念上是不同的，作出这种区分是本书的贡献之一。概览还包括对国别研究中使用的共同方法的描述、对数据和计量问题的讨论以及对调查结果的综合。