Staples, Super-Staples and the Limits of Staple Theory: the Experiences of Argentina, Australia and Canada Compared

Abstract

Over the past thirty years economists have moved away from the earlier notions of strict paths of growth embodied in the likes of the Harrod-Domar model and Rostow’s stages. The emphasis in development economics has shifted from the search for a set of factors of production which in combination would more or less produce development, to what Gustav Ranis has described as the growing awareness that the analysis of growth, employment and distribution must be viewed as integrally of one cloth, with the focus on the existence and size of trade-offs amongst those objectives.¹ This has led to the recognition that there is not one growth path, but rather alternative ways of achieving a particular growth rate depending on the other priorities held by the society. In searching for these alternative growth paths, Ranis sees opportunities for a fuller ‘exploration of the historical laboratory’².