The Mystery of Economic Growth

Very good overview of the existing research. Essentially, this says that there are four important factors: the accumulation of physical and human capital, and the interaction with technological change; the importance of knowledge accumulation and the way that this affects total factor productivity; global linkages and the way that these allow knowledge to be dispersed; and the importance of institutions.

Elhanan Helpman, The Mystery of Economic Growth, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (2004).