Indeterminacy and the Distribution of Growth Rates

In endogenous growth theory models exist which are characterized by local and global indeterminacy. These concepts imply that economies differ with respect to their growth rates on the transition path (local indeterminacy) as well as their long-run growth rates (global indeterminacy). While the empirical density function of the levels of aggregate GDP has been the subject of a great many studies, the distribution of the growth rates has not yet been analyzed. In this paper, recent research on the evolution of the world income distribution is expanded by an analysis of the evolution of the distribution of growth rates for a sample of 104 countries. It is found that this distribution is remarkably stable over the period 1960-90