在过去的几年中，发达国家以及发展中国家一直没有放弃寻找能够促进经济增长模式的努力。不幸的是许多方法最后都被证实有局限性，或者干脆成为了经济发展的减速器，总之可以用一切不稳定因素的代名词来形容。为了避免严重的损失以及漫长的经济复苏过程，我们必须要及早认清这些经济增长模式的局限性。
在发达国家，进口替代作为一种推动经济发展多样化的方式，在短期内可以发挥一定的作用。但是长此以往，随着生产力下降，比较优势不再明显，经济发展也将会停滞。
小型的开放经济一般都很专一化，这就使他们在股市和市场变动面前不堪一击。但是说到经济增长或是生活标准问题，涉及到同国外商品竞争，为保护国内企业，促进经济多样化所支付的成本比收益要多。最好允许企业专业化，建立有效的社会安全网，并且在经济交易中能够允许支持保护大众以及家庭利益制度体系的存在。这些“结构上的灵活性”能够针对科技的进步以及全球经济力量的发展变化，做到随机应变。
自然资源的错位管理绝对是自我限制的增长模式的加固器。如果投资基础设施建设，教育或者是其它外部金融资产，那么自然资源的营收可以促进经济增长。但是很多时候，这种营收都会使经济鼓励政策变形，因为这将导致竞租行为，并且干扰经济发展的多样性，而多样性是经济发展必备的。
近来，许多发达国家发明了一套新的增长模式，但它同样是有自我局限性的：过度的私人或者是公共开支，或者是两者兼具。出现这样的情况主要是不断增长的债务以及通胀物资，同时也会导致投资下降。这种方法起初还可以见到一些成效，但是当国内总需求不能再支持经济发展以及提高就业时，就会出现经济发展停滞或者是大规模的经济危机。（事实上，许多发展中国家也是经过一番周折才懂得了这一点，但是这个教训似乎并没有为发达国家所接受。）
Over the years, advanced and developing countries have experimented, sometimes deliberately and frequently inadvertently, with a variety of approaches to growth. Unfortunately, many of these strategies have turned out to have built-in limitations or decelerators – what one might call elements of unsustainability. And avoiding serious damage and difficult recoveries requires us to get a lot better at recognizing these self-limiting growth patterns early on.
In developing countries, import substitution as a way to jump-start economic diversification can work for a while; but, over time, as productivity growth lags and comparative advantage is over-ridden, growth grinds to a halt.
Small, open economies are naturally somewhat specialized, which leaves them vulnerable to shocks and volatility. But, in terms of growth and living standards, the cost of economic diversification, when implemented by protecting domestic industries from foreign competition, eventually outweighs the benefits. It is better to allow specialization, and build effective social safety nets and support systems to protect people and families during economic transitions. Such “structural flexibility” is better adapted to enabling the broad changes that rapidly evolving technological and global economic forces require.
Mismanagement of natural-resource wealth underpins an especially potent self-limiting pattern of growth and development. If invested in infrastructure, education, and external financial assets, natural-resource revenues can accelerate growth. But, too often, such revenues distort economic incentives, which come to favor rent-seeking and interfere with the diversification that is essential for growth.
More recently, many advanced countries have discovered a “new” set of growth models with built-in structural limitations: excessive private or public consumption, or both, usually accompanied and enabled by rising debt and inflated asset prices, and a corresponding decline in investment. This approach appears to work until domestic aggregate demand can no longer sustain growth and employment, at which point it ends in either gradual stagnation or a violent financial and economic crisis. (In fact, many developing countries have learned this the hard way, but the lessons seem not to have crossed over to advanced countries.)
