In order to examine innovation diffusion and convergence processes, we study productivity trends, trend breaks and levels for 13 advanced countries over 1890-2012. We highlight two productivity waves, a big one following the second industrial revolution and a small one following the ICT...

The purpose of this article is to study the trends in per capita productivity in several major industrialised countries. The analysis is first based on annual data over a long period spanning the entire 20th century for the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Productivity trends are...

Hourly labour productivity levels in a number of European countries are thought to be very close to, or possibly even higher than the level 'observed' in the United States. At the same time, however, there are big differentials between hours worked and/or employment rates in these countries and...

When money was made of gold and silver, individuals faced the problem of determining the intrinsic content of coins in many exchange situations. In this paper we look at a well-documented solution to this problem, and a key institution of the commodity money system: coin assaying. To that goal...

Estimating returns to hours worked and the employment rate provides us with an original interpretation of changes in US productivity and other industrialized countries' catch-up with US productivity levels over recent decades

The sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are excluded from the mega-deals, free trade agreements (FTA) currently under negotiations between several large economies (European Union - United States, European Union - Japan, China-Japan-South Korea…). As Sub-Saharan African exports remain dependent...

In this period of high uncertainty about future economic growth, we have developed a growth projection tool for 13 advanced countries and the euro area at the 2100 horizon. This high uncertainty is reflected in the debate on the possibility of a ‘secular stagnation', fuelled by the short-lived...

Two different approaches are used in this article to study productivity per employee: the determinants of its growth rate in the 1990s are first examined, and then the determinants of its level, using a more structural approach. ICT are shown to have a positive and significant effect on both...

The sustained increase in productivity gains from the spread of ICTs may increase potential output growth in the medium to long term via capital deepening effects and total factor productivity (TFP) gains, and in the short to medium term via the lagged adjustment of wages to productivity gains....