Tables of national competitiveness give an easily comparable ranking of the winners and losers of global economic competition, but they do not explain why the poor countries are four times less productive than the rich ones or why some rich countries are twice as productive as others. Using...

Tables of national competitiveness give an easily comparable ranking of the winners and losers of global economic competition. But they don't explain why the “poor” countries are four times less productive than the “rich” ones or why some rich countries are twice as productive as others....

Les palmarès de la compétitivité nationale permettent de définir un classement, avec des possibilités de comparaisons immédiates, des gagnants et des perdants de la compétition économique mondiale.Cependant, ils laissent un certain nombre de questions sans réponse. S’appuyant sur des...

Raising manufacturing productivity is of central importance to the developing world and an essential element of policy making. Overcoming Barriers to Competitiveness is about establishing the most reliable analysis of manufacturing productivity possible and helping policy makers set their...

Raising manufacturing productivity is of central importance to the developing world and an essential element of policy making. <I>Overcoming Barriers to Competitiveness</I> is about establishing the most reliable analysis of manufacturing productivity possible and helping policy makers set their...</i>

The capital-output ratio is more than 40% lower in the poor countries than in the richest ones. Comparing TFP in manufacturing and in the economy at large, we show that the Balassa-Samuelson effect explains the bulk of this scarcity: TFP in manufacturing is indeed about 40% lower than TFP in the...

This Discussion Paper analyses 23 industrial sector in a sample of 51 developed and developing countries. It distinguishes the contribution of five factors: private capital, infrastructure, education, trade integration, and net efficiency. Several relatively small handicaps, combined...