"I make the point to remind you, if reminder be necessary, that the study of economic growth is still in its infancy. Countries rise up and fall, and we are not in a position to predict which ones will do best or worst over the next twenty years. This is equally true of developed and developing countries. Economics is good at explaining what has happened over the past twenty years, but when we turn to predicting the future it tends to be an essay in ideology."
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Princeton University facultyNobel laureates in EconomicsEconomists from the United KingdomFellows of the British AcademyNobel laureates from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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lecture in September 1984, published in William Breit and Barry T. Hirsch (eds.), Lives of the Laureates (5th ed., 2009)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._Arthur_Lewis
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W. Arthur Lewis
Sir William Arthur Lewis (23 January 1915 – 15 June 1991) was a Saint Lucian economist well known for his contributions in the field of economic development. In 1979 he and Theodore Schultz won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
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