This paper discusses links between policy settings, institutions and economic growth in OECD countries on the basis of cross-country time-series regressions. The econometric approach allows short-term adjustments and convergence speeds to vary across countries, imposing restrictions only on the...

In this paper we present an international comparison of growth trends in the OECD countries, with a special attention to developments in labour productivity - allowing for human capital accumulation - and multifactor productivity (MFP) - allowing for changes in the composition of fixed capital....

This paper discusses growth performance in the OECD countries over the past two decades. Special attention is given to developments in labour productivity, allowing for human capital accumulation, and multifactor productivity (MFP), allowing for changes in the composition and quality of physical...

The authors examine the relative importance of the growth of physical and human capital and the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) using newly organized data on 145 countries that span more than one hundred years for twenty-four of these countries. For all countries, only 3 percent of...

This paper compares productivity developments across industrial countries based on official OECD data in the business sector. It discusses the uncertainties surrounding the measurement of both productivity levels and productivity growth, and then focuses on changes in productivity growth. The...

We revisit Western Europe's record with labor-productivity convergence and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ones through both higher rates of physical capital accumulation and greater...

Intersectoral linkages can act as shock propagation channels and shape the pattern of structural transformation. To our knowledge, no research has examined how subnational differences in intersectoral linkages impact such spillover effects. We hypothesize that regional differences in local...

Business cycles and growth cycles should not be mixed or confused, as is unfortunately often the case in discussions of economic growth. This paper compares various approaches to time series decomposition for the analysis of business cycles and growth cycles as related but separate phenomena. We...

The paper discusses conditions and prospects for fast and durable growth in emerging market economies. In the course of history less than 30 countries have become rich and still more than 80 percent of the world population is lagging behind. In many cases a lot indeed. It is true not only for...

This paper surveys the experience of economic growth in the 20th century with a focus on technological change at the frontier together with issues related to success and failure in catch-up growth. A detailed account of growth performance based on historical national accounts data is given and...