Specializing in tourism is an option available to a number of less developed countries and regions. But is it a good option? To answer this question, we have compared the relative growth performance of 14 “tourism countries” within a sample of 143 countries, observed during the period...

Over the last few years, a large body of literature has shown that the level of information and communications technology (ICT) diffusion, and, as a result, the favorable effects of this diffusion on productivity, differ greatly between the major advanced countries, with the United States the...

Productivity growth is the main long-run determinant of living standards. However, there are some distinctions between productivity growth as conventionally measured and the potential of the economy to raise living standards. Specifically, insofar as the share of depreciation in output...

THIS FIFTEENTH ISSUE OF THE International Productivity Monitor published by the Centre for the Study of Living Standard contains five articles. Topics covered are: product market regulation and productivity convergence in OECD countries and implications for Canada; the impact of interprovincial...

Among the rich economies of the world today, per capita output levels had diverged before converging to the per capita output level of the frontier economy. Since frontier economies have grown at stable rates, non-frontier economies display an S-shape aggregate transition path. Along this...

Based on key macroeconomic indexes (real GDP per capita, labor productivity, share of costs from GDP for information and communication technologies (ICT), costs in the R&D sector, education and training, etc.), analyzed are the dynamic changes in the economic potentials of USA and EC. Central...

This paper proposes a new taxonomy for countries based on principal component analysis. The paper investigates 51 countries using a set of 13 indicators of economic and technological performance for the period 2000-2002. The methodology reduces the variables and groups the countries that show...

In a classical article, Granger (1966) argued that the levels of most economic time series have spectra that exhibit a smooth declining shape with considerable power at very low frequencies. He termed it "the typical spectral shape of an economic variable." Granger's assertion has not been...

Basic conceptual, statistical and measurement aspects of the intangible assets are considered regarding to their contribution to the economic growth. The increasing importance of the intangible assets in the modern economy is described. The role of the intangible assets in the creating of the...

This paper reviews the empirical literature on growth and convergence that has addressed the importance of spatial factors. An important distinction in this literature is the one between absolute and relative location. The literature on absolute location predominantly uses non-spatial...