This paper tackles a number of issues that are central to cross-country comparisons of productivity. We develop a “dual” method to compare levels of total factor productivity (TFP) across nations that relies on factor price data rather than the data on stocks of factors required by standard “primal” estimates. Consistent with the development accounting literature based on primal estimates, we f...

We investigate to what extent convergence in production levels per worker has been achieved in Germany since unification. To this end, we model the distribution of GDP per employee across German districts using two-component normal mixtures. While in the first year after unification, the two component distributions were clearly separated and bimodal, corresponding to the East and West German di...

New U.S. evidence from NIPA contradicts some of the well-known Kaldor stylized facts, and call for a reformulation of the modern theory of economic growth. Among these new facts, two must be stressed: A permanent decline in the relative price of durable goods, and a permanent increase in the real equipment to real GDP ratio. To be consistent with these new facts, growth models must include at l...

Slower growth of the labour force and an increase in old-age dependency will reduce the growth of aggregrate output and output per capita in many developed countries. However, a major question is whether there is any systematic link between demographics and the productivity of those who will still be active during the up-coming period of demographic ageing. As productivity is difficult to inves...

In developing countries, aggregate labor productivity typically remains stagnant for long periods before taking-o¤. We study this as the outcome of a gradual transition of the workforce from traditional to modern sectors. While exogenous productivity growth is present in the modern sector only, transition to the modern sector is gradual because work experience is sector-speci…c and complements ...

This paper examines whether endogenous growth processes can be found in middle income country contexts. Estimation proceeds by means of dynamic heterogeneous panel analysis. Empirical evidence ...nds in favour of both knowledge spill-over e¤ects, and of positive impacts on total factor productivty growth by Schumpeterian innovative activity. A crucial ...nding is that spill-over e¤ects emerge f...

This paper studies the relationship between export activities and firm-level productivity. Unique matching of German and Austrian micro data from 1994 to 2003 suggests that exporters are more productive by around 40 percent compared with non-exporters. Moreover, beside other analysis techniques, instrumental variable estimations suggest that exporting causes a rise in firm-level productivity. T...

Review of the Recent Trends in Development Economics Research: With Experience from the Federal Region of Kurdistan This study is a review of the recent trends in development economics research. The focus is on the development in the recent decades as a result of increased globalization of knowledge, technologies and economies. In particular I look at the development in a number area where simi...

We survey those recent developments in environmental and resource economics that have been prompted by a puzzling cultural phenomenon, where one group (usually natural scientists) sees in humanity's current use of Nature's services symptoms of a deep malaise, even while another group (usually economists) documents the fact that people today are on average better off in many ways than they had e...

This paper joins the debate of why Chinese manufacturing has experienced a significant catch-up. We estimate the cost and non-cost competitiveness of China and other 12 countries‟ manufacturing between 1970-2008 in three steps: firstly providing an overview of the method to analyzing competitiveness, secondly identifying factors that affect it, at last carrying out empirical studies. At outset,...