take-off
take-offAn idea derived from the American economic historian Walt W. Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth (1953). Rostow postulated five such stages: traditional society; preconditions for take-off; take-off to maturity; drive to maturity; and maturity. In this way he claimed to identify a recognizable stage in a country's history, lasting perhaps 20–30 years, during which the conditions required for sustained and fairly rapid economic growth are consolidated, and beyond which growth is more or less assured. The theory assumes that levels of capital investment are crucial to initiating economic growth. Rostow applied this schema to the problems of the then developing countries; and (indirectly) influenced and justified American foreign and overseas-aid policies towards the Third World.
Although the concept of a take-off to self-sustaining economic growth has been influential, Rostow's argument was subsequently the...
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