Why do some countries grow and others do not? The authors of The Atlas of Economic Complexity offer readers an explanation based on "Economic Complexity," a measure of a society’s productive knowledge. Prosperous societies are those that have the knowledge to make a larger variety of more...

When have you gone into an electronics store, picked up a desirable gadget, and found that it was labeled “Made in Russia� Probably never. Russia, despite its epic intellectual achievements in music, literature, art, and pure science, is a negligible presence in world technology....