Ideas are different from nearly all other economic goods in that they are nonrivalrous. This nonrivalry implies that production possibilities are likely to be characterized by increasing returns to scale, an insight that has profound implications for economic growth. The purpose of this chapter...

Economic growth is typically measured in per capita terms. But social welfare should arguably include the number of people as well as their standard of living. We decompose social welfare growth -- measured in consumption-equivalent (CE) units -- into contributions from rising population and...

This paper explores the role of information in the theory of economic growth and development. They way it is used here, information/ refers to every feature of an economy, including not only the economic environment, but also the institutions like markets and government policies that affect the...

The recent literature on convergence has departed from the earlier literature by focusing on the shape of the production function and the rate at which an economy converges to its own steady state. This paper uses advances from the recent literature to look back at the question that originally...

The post-World War II period has seen substantial changes in the distribution of GDP per worker around the world. In the upper half of the distribution, a number of countries have exhibited large increases in income relative to the richest countries. In the bottom half, several countries have...

This paper examines the role of sectors in aggregate convergence for 14 OECD countries during 1970-1987. The major finding is that manufacturing shows little evidence of either labor productivity or multifactor productivity convergence, while other sectors, especially services, are driving the...

Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? On an accounting basis, our analysis shows that differences in physical capital and educational attainment can only partially explain the variation in output per worker--we find a large amount of variation in the level of the Solow...

Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? Our analysis shows that differences in social infrastructure are important sources of this variation. According to our results, a high-productivity country (i) has institutions that favor production over diversion, (ii) has a low rate of...

Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? Our analysis shows that differences in governmental, cultural, and natural infrastructure are important sources of this variation. According to our results, a high-productivity country (i) has institutions that favor production over...

Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? On an accounting basis, our analysis shows that differences in physical capital and educational attainment can only partially explain the variation in output per worker we find a large amount of variation in the level of the Solow...