Using a growth accounting framework, we find that developing Asia grew rapidly over the past three decades mainly due to robust growth in capital accumulation. The contributions of education and total factor productivity in the region's past economic growth remain relatively limited. We also...

Slovenia’s living standards measured in GDP per capita are currently some 20% below the EU15 average and have not yet reached their pre-crisis level. Given that most of this gap comes from differences in labour productivity, the paper looks at productivity trends and sources of productivity...

As its workforce ages and major economies shift towards producing higher value-added goods and services, New Zealand will face increasing challenges to remain globally competitive and maintain high living standards. Future growth will need to come increasingly from productivity gains, and...

Cognitive skills are robustly associated with good national economic performance. How much of this is due to high-skill countries doing a better job of absorbing total factor productivity from the world's technology leader? Following Benhabib and Spiegel (Handbook of Economic Growth, 2005), who...

Incomes per capita have grown dramatically over the past two centuries, but the increase has been unevenly spread across time and across the world. Growth accounting is the principal quantitative tool for understanding this phenomenon, and for assessing the prospects for further increases in...

Between 1850 and 2000, Spain’s real income increased by about 40-fold, at an average rate of 2.5 percent. The sources of this long-run growth are investigated using Jorgenson-type growth accounting analysis. We find that growth upsurges are closely related to increases in TFP. Spanish economic...

U.S. public school expenditures per pupil increased by a factor of 9 during the 20th century. This paper quantifies how much U.S. labor quality has grown due to the rise in educational spending. A schooling model and cross-sectional earnings variations across cohorts are exploited to identify...

Boosting productivity growth is necessary to raise living standards and well-being for all. Aggregate productivity has fallen, mainly driven by manufacturing, although service industries have also tended to underperform. Reviving productivity requires improving framework conditions further so...

Over the past two decades, the income level of the Czech Republic has converged considerably towards the OECD average. However, after the 2008 global crisis, the convergence process stalled. Shortfalls in labour productivity have developed and are mainly structural. Policies are needed to foster...

The article aims to present and discuss estimates of levels of human and social capital in Italy’s regions over the long term, i.e., roughly from the second half of the nineteenth century up to the present day. The results are linked to newly available evidence for regional value added in...