PROGRESS

Progress is a general term frequently used by experts to denote betterment or improvement in anything. In economics, the term was used for a long time to show the positive movement in the lives of people and in an economy. It had both quantitative and qualitative aspects to it. After a point of time, some economists started using all the three terms—progress, growth and development—interchangeably to mean almost the same thing. But it was only during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that a clear meanings of these terms really evolved.1 The term ‘progress’ became a general term with no specific meaning in economics or denoting both growth and development. But growth and development were allotted their clear-cut meanings.