This paper uses a long-run identifying restrictions on a three-variable system containing output growth, real wage growth and the unemployment rate, to isolate three "structural" shocks which drove business cycle fluctuations in a sample of 16 OECD countries during 1950-94.

This paper is concerned with the nature of economic growth in 19 manufacturing industries between 1970-92. There is substantial heterogeneity (both across sectors and time) in rates of growth of value-added, hours worked, labour productivity and Total Factor Productivity during the sample...

The growth experience in manufacturing in South and East Asian economies is well documented. Less is known about absolute levels of economic performance. This paper presents a star comparison of six Asian economies (China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and the USA, the world...

This paper examines the feasibility of constructing a consistent set of multilateral comparisons of manufacturing sector output and productivity within the framework of the ICOP project. A major objective of the paper is to construct truly multilateral comparisons using the existing data base of...

The rapid growth performance of the Dutch economy in terms of growth in real GDP, employment and per capita income can be traced back to the mid-1980s. This paper suggests that the growth acceleration of the Dutch economy has primarily been the result of a below-average performance during...

This paper discusses the comparative productivity performance of Eastern and Western Europe since 1950. Firstly, it looks at the productivity estimates since the beginning of transition in 1989. Secondly an historical approach is adopted by taking into account the growth performance of CEEC's...

This paper revisits and critically re-evaluates the widely-accepted modernization hypothesis which claims that per capita income causes the creation and the consolidation of democracy. We argue that existing studies find support for this hypothesis because they fail to control for the presence...

This paper reconsiders the relationship between inflation, economic growth and external debt, and discusses various channels through which (a) increased inflation tends to reduce growth and raise foreign indebtedness over time and (b) declining growth tends to amplify both inflation and debt....