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...

The issue of model uncertainty is central to the empirical study of economic growth. Many recent papers use Bayesian Model Averaging to address model uncertainty, but Ciccone and Jarocinski (2010) have questioned the approach on theoretical and empirical grounds. They argue that a standard...

This paper assesses the ‘one big wave’ in multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth for the United States since 1870. The wave-like pattern starts with slow MFP growth in the late 19th century, then acceleration peaking in 1928-50, and then a deceleration to a slow rate after 1972 that returns...

The commonly accepted chronology for comparative productivity levels based on GDP data does not apply to the manufacturing sector, where there is evidence of a much greater degree of stationarity of comparative labour productivity performance among the major industrialized countries of Germany,...

This paper studies procyclical productivity growth at the industry level in the U.S. and in three European countries (France, Germany and the Netherlands). Industry-specific demand-side instruments are used to examine the prevalence of non-constant returns to scale and unmeasured input...

Recent empirical studies tend to confirm the importance of investment in human and technological capital as determinants of growth. Extensions of the neoclassical model that incorporate these factors explain rather well the long-run growth experience of a large sample of countries, and are...

Many factors inhibiting and facilitating economic growth have been suggested. Will international income data tell which matter when all are treated symmetrically a priori? We find that growth determinants emerging from agnostic Bayesian model averaging and classical model selection procedures...

A growth accounting methodology is used to compare the contributions to growth in terms of capital-deepening and total factor productivity growth of three general-purpose technologies, namely, steam in Britain during 1780-1860, electricity and information and communications technology in the...

Economic growth in Denmark in the post-war years has been close to the OECD average. The `golden age' of very high growth was, however, of shorter duration in Denmark than in most other OECD countries. The main emphasis in this paper is on the description of productivity performance in the...

Pooled regressions, first of eight and then of sixteen countries, show a steady and robust process of endogenous growth in Europe since 1870, interrupted only by the events of World War II and the impact of convergence towards US levels of performance in the 1950s and the 1960s. This result...