This paper surveys the experience of economic growth in the 20th century with a focus on technological change at the frontier together with issues related to success and failure in catch-up growth. A detailed account of growth performance based on historical national accounts data is given and...

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...

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...

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...