The Cobb-Douglas production function is still today the most ubiquitous form in theoretical and empirical analyses of growth and productivity. The estimation of the parameters of aggregate production functions is central to much of today's work on growth, technological change, productivity, and...

This paper evaluates factors responsible for the competitiveness of China in the world economy and relative to its East Asian rivals. China has been highly successful in capturing world export markets. Chinese competitiveness is not just a matter of an undervalued exchange rate and extremely low...

The Japanese current account has been in surplus since 1981, ranging from 1% to more than 4% of GDP. In this paper, we review the macroeconomic forces that have driven the surplus and describe likely changes in the first part of the next century. In coming years, structural change in Japan's...

Why are saving rates in the East Asian countries so high? This paper represents an attempt to provide an explanation in terms of rapid income growth rates linked to the life cycle hypothesis under the modification that consumption standards rise as income does, and that they continue to rise...