Productivity Trends in Advanced Countries between 1890 and 2012

In order to examine productivity waves and convergence processes, we study productivity trends, trend breaks, and levels for 13 advanced countries between 1890 and 2012. We highlight two productivity waves, a big one following the second industrial revolution and a smaller one following the ICT revo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Review of income and wealth Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 420 - 444
Main Authors Bergeaud, Antonin, Cette, Gilbert, Lecat, Rémy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2016
Subjects
convergence
E22
Economic conditions
Economic crisis
Economic policy
Financial institutions
global history
Industrialization
International finance
N10
O47
Productivity
Studies
technological change
Trends
United States > US
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:In order to examine productivity waves and convergence processes, we study productivity trends, trend breaks, and levels for 13 advanced countries between 1890 and 2012. We highlight two productivity waves, a big one following the second industrial revolution and a smaller one following the ICT revolution. The convergence process has been erratic, halted by inappropriate institutions, technology shocks, financial crises, and above all wars, which led to major productivity level leaps, downwards for countries experiencing war on their soil, and upwards for other countries. Productivity trend breaks have been identified following wars, global financial crises, global supply shocks, and major policy changes. The upward trend break for the U.S. in the mid‐1990s has been confirmed, as has the downward trend break for the euro area in the same period.
Bibliography:Appendix 1: Data Appendix Table A1-1: Initialization date (t0) of the capital series (K) Table A1-2: Bombing over Germany by Royal Air Force and US Air Force Table A1-3: PPP conversions indexes to USD2005 and comparison to the Penn World Table ones Table A1-4: Correlation matrix for: - Labor productivity (LP) over the US level, at the bottom part of the Table - Total factor productivity (TFP) over the US level, at the upper part of the Table Appendix 2: Methodology Appendix Table A2-1: End dates of the two world wars year fixed effect periods (a and b) Appendix 3: Robustness Table A3-1: Break dates significance: Student test for the break coefficient (coefficient βk in equation 1, section 3.1) Table A3-2: TFP robustness test with respect to α, the capital share-Break dates Table A3-3: TFP robustness test with respect to δ, the depreciation rate of the capital-Break dates Appendix 4: Additional Graphs Graph A4-1: Level of labor productivity per hour (LP) relative to the current US level in non-Euro Area countries 1890 to 2012-$ 2005 ppp-US level = 100 Graph A4-2: Level of labor productivity per hour (LP) relative to the current US level in Euro Area countries 1890 to 2012-$ 2005 ppp-US level = 100 Graph A4-3: Level of total factor productivity (TFP) relative to the current US level in non-Euro Area countries 1890 to 2012-$ 2005 ppp-US level = 100 Graph A4-4: Level of total factor productivity (TFP) relative to the current US level in Euro Area countries 1890 to 2012-$ 2005 ppp-US level = 100 Graph A4-5: Productivity with breaks B-For Euro Area Countries Graph A4-6: Productivity with breaks C-For Other Countries Excel file containing data for TFP and LP
istex:E4E1F921B4F2F3058C0E862F53F3CE42899704E6
ark:/67375/WNG-72RVLSL9-X
ArticleID:ROIW12185
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0034-6586
1475-4991
DOI:10.1111/roiw.12185