The discussion of economic growth has a long history, going back to the classical economists.1 The intensity of the discussion has varied over the years, and it has been amplified over the last two decades. This growing interest can be attributed to two main reasons: First, the concern with the persistent gap in the standard of living across countries, and second the appearance of new insights into old problems. In this lecture, we will take a broad overview of the field, and outline an approach that is consistent with the data. By explanation of growth, we mean an explicit framework that can be confronted with the data and hopefully be validated. To set up the background for our discussion we begin with a summary of the evidence followed by an incomplete review of the literature to illustrate the efforts of