The highest rates of growth of labor productivity in the Soviet Union were observed not in the 1930s (3% annually), but in the 1950s (6%). The TFP growth rates by decades increased from 0.6% annually in the 1930s to 2.8% in the 1950s and then fell monotonously becoming negative in the 1980s. The...

This chapter is an attempt to interpret recent rapid Chinese growth in a longer term perspective. First, it is argued that recent economic liberalization produced spectacular results (1979-onwards) because reform strategy was very different from the Washington consensus package (gradual rather...