Testing for economic convergence across countries has been a central issue in the literature of economic growth and development. This book introduces a modern framework to study the cross-country convergence dynamics in labor productivity and its proximate sources: capital accumulation and aggregate efficiency. In particular, recent convergence dynamics of developed as well as developing countries are evaluated through the lens of a non-linear dynamic factor model and a clustering algorithm for panel data. This framework allows us to examine key economic phenomena such as technological heterogeneity and multiple equilibria. In this context, the book provides a succinct review of the recent club convergence literature, a comparative view of developed and developing countries, and a tutorial on how to implement the club convergence framework in the statistical software Stata.

The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organisations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed. To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.

This collection of original articles looks at the convergence hypothesis, which asserts that since the Second World War, industrial countries were growing increasingly homogeneous in terms of productivity, technology, and per capita incomes. The book examines patterns displayed by individual industries within countries as well as the aggregate economies, influences that underlie the process of convergence, and the role that convergence has played and promises to play in the future. Contributors include: Moses Abramovitz, Alice M. Amsden, Magnus Blomstrom, David Dollar, Takashi Hikino, Gregory Ingram, William Lazonick, Frank Lichtenberg, Robert E. Lipsey, Angus Maddison, Gavin Wright, and Mario Zejan.

A vast new literature on the sources of economic growth has now accumulated. This book critically reviews the most significant works in this field and summarizes what is known today about the sources of economic growth. The first part discusses the most important theoretical models that have been used in modern growth theory as well as methodological issues in productivity measurement. The second part examines the long-term record on productivity among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, considers the sources of growth among them with particular attention to the role of education, investigates convergence at the industry level among them, and examines the productivity slowdown of the 1970s. The third part looks at the sources of growth among non-OECD countries. Each chapter emphasizes the factors that appear to be most important in explaining growth performance.

Hofman, a researcher with the Chile-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, uses growth accounting methods and previously unavailable long-term series data to assess the economic performance of the region during the century from a comparative and historical perspective. In particular he compares Latin American economies to those of advanced capitalist economies, to newly industrialized economies, and to Spain and Portugal because of the historical ties. He looks at the reasons for the poor or negative growth during the 1980s and the apparent recovery in the 1990s and at such problems as debt, income inequality, high inflation, cyclical instability, and political and policy instability. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Introduction to Modern Economic Growth is a groundbreaking text from one of today's leading economists. Daron Acemoglu gives graduate students not only the tools to analyze growth and related macroeconomic problems, but also the broad perspective needed to apply those tools to the big-picture questions of growth and divergence. And he introduces the economic and mathematical foundations of modern growth theory and macroeconomics in a rigorous but easy to follow manner. After covering the necessary background on dynamic general equilibrium and dynamic optimization, the book presents the basic workhorse models of growth and takes students to the frontier areas of growth theory, including models of human capital, endogenous technological change, technology transfer, international trade, economic development, and political economy. The book integrates these theories with data and shows how theoretical approaches can lead to better perspectives on the fundamental causes of economic growth and the wealth of nations. Innovative and authoritative, this book is likely to shape how economic growth is taught and learned for years to come. Introduces all the foundations for understanding economic growth and dynamic macroeconomic analysis Focuses on the big-picture questions of economic growth Provides mathematical foundations Presents dynamic general equilibrium Covers models such as basic Solow, neoclassical growth, and overlapping generations, as well as models of endogenous technology and international linkages Addresses frontier research areas such as international linkages, international trade, political economy, and economic development and structural change An accompanying Student Solutions Manual containing the answers to selected exercises is available (978-0-691-14163-3/$24.95). See: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8970.html. For Professors only: To access a complete solutions manual online, email us at: [email protected]

This paper investigates how the sector-specific source or the changing sectoral composition of labor productivity has contributed to aggregate beta convergence, using a newly constructed eight-sector database. The main findings are twofold. First, both within and sectoral reallocation have become important drivers of aggregate convergence in labor productivity. Second, agricultural productivity growth has been a significant contributor to aggregate convergence, whereas catch-up in other sectors has only contributed a small amount to convergence. The strong growth of the agriculture sector has been the most important driver of aggregate productivity convergence even though agricultural productivity itself in low-income countries is weakly converging to that in advanced economies.