Historically, productivity growth was not all about high tech sectors and research and development (R&D) expenditure. A new study published The Economic Journal finds that the great majority of productivity originated in other, more ‘run-of-the-mill’ industries. Continue reading “Column: Historical Productivity Growth from Run of the Mill Industries”
ABSTRACT: The role of physical capital is typically found to be limited in accounting for differences in GDP per worker, but this result may be because capital is customarily assumed to be a homogenous unit. This assumption is misleading, Continue reading “Article: The Composition of Capital and Cross-country Productivity Comparisons”
A growth decomposition for the U.S. private domestic economy and a 38-industry breakdown. For peak years between 1899 and 1941, this dataset includes detailed estimates for output, employment, hours worked, labor quality, labor services, capital stocks, capital quality, capital services and Continue reading “Dataset: U.S. Growth Accounts, 1899-1941”
ABSTRACT: We develop new aggregate TFP growth estimates for the United States between 1899 and 1941, and sectoral estimates at the most disaggregated level so far, 38 industries. We include hard-to-measure services, and a refined measure of sectoral labour quality growth. Continue reading “Article: The Sources of Growth in a Technologically Progressive Economy”
This dataset provides detailed census-level data for Manufacturing in the US, Germany and Great Britain for selected years between 1899 and 1939. It covers output, horsepower, employment and efficiency at the 2-, 3- and 4-digit industry level. It also Continue reading “Dataset: The Yankees of Europe?”
This dataset provides improved measures of total factor productivity for the U.S private domestic economy and a 35-industry breakdown. For the period 1929-1947 it includes detailed estimates for output, employment, hours worked, labor quality, capital stocks, Continue reading “Dataset: U.S. Historical National Accounts, 1929-1947”
ABSTRACT: Labor productivity in German manufacturing lagged persistently behind the United States in the early twentieth century. Traditionally, this is attributed to dichotomous technology paths across the Atlantic. Continue reading “Article: The Yankees of Europe?”
ABSTRACT: America’s lead over Europe in manufacturing productivity from the late nineteenth century onwards has often been contributed to differences in initial conditions, trapping Europe in a relatively declining, labor-intensive and low-productive technological path. In this paper, I reassess the productivity dynamics in British manufacturing Continue reading “Working Paper: The Great Escape”
Pieter (Jop) WOLTJER 