The book is organized in two parts. The first part looks at issues of long-term growth and development patterns, and the second part focuses on issues of macroeconomic vulnerability and its social effects.
- Chapter 1, looks at the determinants of dynamic efficiency in developing countries, which is seen as the result of two basic processes.
- Chapter 2, looks at the same issue from a slightly different angle: the combined effect of the technological gap relative to developed countries and the propensity to import.
- Chapter 3, takes as its starting point the inverted-U pattern followed by the share of manufacturing in total employment as a result of the process of structural change generated by increases in per capita income.
- Chapter 4, analyzes the social effects of structural reforms.
- Chapter 5, considers the determinants of business cycles.
- Chapter 6 explores a case of destabilization.
- Chapter 7, discusses debt sustainability issues
and the last chapter, deals with divergence and growth collapses, and serves to tie together the issues analyzed in both parts of the book.