Does the concept of General Purpose Technologies help explain periods of faster and slower productivity advance in economies? The paper develops a new comparative data set on the usage of electricity in the manufacturing sectors of the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Japan and proceeds to...

Manufacturing was responsible for almost all - 83 percent - of the growth of total factor productivity in the U.S. private nonfarm economy between 1919 and 1929. During the Depression manufacturing TFP growth was not as uniformly distributed, and only half as rapid, accounting for only 48...

This study provides an estimation of the causal relationship between the reduction in malaria transmission and farmer agricultural productivity. Exploiting exogenous ge- ographic variations in the stability of malaria and using historical disaggregated county data for the US together with a...

This study provides an estimation of the causal relationship between the reduction in malaria transmission and farmer agricultural productivity. Exploiting exogenous geographic variations in the stability of malaria and using historical disaggregated county data for the US together with a robust...

Quebec’s relative growth performance with Ontario has always been an issue of concern for economic historians. In his paper Pierre Fortin discusses trends in Quebec’s real domestic income relative to that in Ontario over the last half-century. He finds that per capita real domestic income in...

Many historical comparisons of international productivity use measures of labour productivity (output per worker). Differences in labour productivity can be caused by differences in technical efficiency or differences in capital intensity. Moving to measures of total factor productivity allows...

Claims that the experience of economic mobilization between 1942 and 1945 laid the supply foundations for output and productivity growth in the United States after the war have formed the basis of the conventional wisdom for decades. In fact, between 1941 and 1948, total factor productivity...

This paper considers the productivity impact on the U.S. economy of the period of war mobilization and demobilization lasting from 1941 to 1948. Optimists have pointed to learning by doing in military production and spinoffs from military R and D as the basis for asserting a substantial positive...

This paper examines the level of labour productivity in Canada relative to that of the United States in 1999. In doing so, it addresses two main issues. The first is the comparability of the measures of GDP and labour inputs that the statistical agency in each country produces. Second, it...

A consideration of TFP growth in the United States during the golden age (1948-73) raises two related questions: on the one hand why was it so strong and on the other hand, why were TFP growth rates lower than they were during the Depression years (1929-41)? A continuing downward trend in TFP...