If developing nation experiences a relatively low level of private investment and entrepreneurship, what steps should it take? The basic decision tree for addressing this question is seen in Figure 4.3, with arrows leading to the ten bottom boxes (that is, the boxes from which no arrows extend further). At the first stage of the tree, the analyst seeks to divide countries between those for which the main problem is a low underlying rate of return and those for which the problem is an abnormally high cost of finance. Let us consider the former case first, following the left arrow pointing to Low return to economic activity.
Low returns to investors may be due to the fact that there are intrinsically low underlying social returns to economic activities. Alternatively, low returns may be caused by what is termed low private appropriable, meaning limited ability of investors to reap an adequate share of the rewards of their otherwise profitable investment. Considering these cases in turn, low social returns may be caused by one of three factors.