We study the issue of income convergence across countries and regions with a Bayesian model which allows us to use information in an efficient and flexible way. We argue that the very slow convergence rates to a common level of per-capita income found, for example, by Barro and Sala-i-Martin, is...

This paper reinterprets a simple model of growth and fluctuations across many economies to allow for the explicit characterization of the dynamically-evolving cross-economy distribution of income. Such a framework provides a more natural, revealing study of the convergence hypothesis. The data...

This Paper investigates how the legal framework not only affects the amount of external financing available, but also firms’ resource allocation among different types of assets. Using a simple model, we show that in a weaker legal environment a firm will get less financing, and thus invest...

This paper examines growth in output per person in 17 OECD countries from the late nineteenth century to 1989 considering the possibility of several breaks in trend. In all cases the unit root hypothesis is rejected in favour of a segmented trend stationary alternative. 1951-73 is shown to be an...

Many countries, both industrialized and developing, appear to have experienced a slowdown in economic growth. We examine a large sample of countries and find that a majority exhibit a significant structural break in their post-war growth rates. In nearly all of these cases the break was followed...

This paper extends the standard growth regression model by adding an assumption that a country follows the global technology frontier either fully or partially. This additional assumption changes significantly the growth regression model and its results in three main ways. First, it shows that...

This paper looks at the channels through which intangible assets affect productivity. The econometric analysis exploits a new dataset on intangible investment (INTAN-Invest) in conjunction with EUKLEMS productivity estimates for 10 EU member states from 1998 to 2007. We find that (a) the...

The paper comprises a thorough survey of the literature on growth in Western Europe since 1950. This experience is put in the context both of long-run historical trends and the ideas emanating from recent work in growth economics. The exceptional nature of the Golden Age (c.1950-73) is confirmed...

The paper surveys both the usefulness of endogenous innovation models of growth in economic history and the implications of historical research for new growth theorists. It is suggested that economic historians should take endogenous innovation models seriously and that this will help them to...

In this paper we examine the persistent effects of past wages of displaced workers on the probability of finding a new job and on wages in the new job. We use a new database looking at the post-displacement experience of a sample of Belgian workers who have lost their jobs because of a sizeable...