Buy this book, I kid you not

. . . then read it, cover to cover.  Lewis’s book, The Power of Productivity (see image below), is one of the best I’ve read in years, and it is an excellent complement to the Easterly book, The Elusive Quest for Growth, which I mentioned earlier this year. 

If you have any interest at all in the reasons why just a few countries have such high incomes (per capita), just a few have middle incomes, and most have such low incomes—and how most low-income countries could, but probably won’t, get out of their poverty rut—you should buy this book and read it. 

This book explains why the people of Japan lag 30% behind the USA in income per capita, even though they lead the world in steel, automobiles, machine tools, and consumer electronics.  (Hint: Their service sector, far larger than their manufacturing sector, is significantly less productive than the USA’s service sector.) 

It also explains why macroeconomics, using country-level aggregate numbers, misses so many important insights into the causes of growth and the remedies for poverty (...that’s redundant, by the way, because “growth” means “escape from poverty.”) 

If you click on this image to buy the book, I’ll get a small percentage from Amazon for the referral; to avoid that, go to Amazon some other way, then order it.  Your choice.  The important thing is that you get the book one way or another, then read it.