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One of the earliest and most central insights of the literature on economic development is that development entails structural change. The countries that manage to pull themselves out of poverty and get richer are those that are able to diversify away from agriculture and other traditional products. As labour and other resources move from agriculture into modern economic activities, overall productivity rises and incomes expand. The speed with which this structural transformation takes place is the key factor that differentiates successful countries from unsuccessful ones.
McMillan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.