The Commission on Growth and Development, an independent group of twenty-one leading practitioners from government, business and the policymaking arenas, released recently its final report The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development,which looks at how developing countries can achieve fast sustained and equitable growth.

Since 1950, 13 economies have grown at an average rate of 7 percent a year or more for 25 years or longer. At that pace of expansion, an economy almost doubles in size every decade. This report is about sustained, high growth of this kind: its causes, consequences, and internal dynamics.  One might call it a report on “economic miracles,” except that we believe the term is a misnomer. Unlike miracles, sustained, high growth can be explained and, we hope, repeated.