In some capacity or the other, we have thought about why living standards vary across different countries. Why are some countries rich and some extremely poor? It is essentially a question that has prodded many economists, policymakers, institutionalists, and political scientists across academia for a long time. Interestingly enough, we as laymen often seem to preoccupy ourselves with growth, claiming that our economy is not growing at a fast pace and there are major hindrances to the drivers of economic growth. Then, others talk about the regress of development and cite reasons for the failure of development policies. All this is pretty much acknowledged and multiple views are stemming from new research about why countries continue to remain poor. It is often cited growth and development go hand in hand as the social, political, cultural, and economic traits of an economy are interconnected. In this chapter, I will categorically refrain from addressing these issues, at least in a major portion of it. These are battles that have remained inconclusive and in some positive probability are likely to continue.
Ghosh, Sayantan (Wed,) studied this question.