The COVID-19 pandemic struck the global economy after a decade that featured a broad-based slowdown in productivity growth. Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies presents the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution and drivers of productivity growth, examines the effects of COVID-19 on productivity, and discusses a wide range of policies needed to rekindle productivity growth. The book also provides a far-reaching data set of multiple measures of productivity for up to 164 advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies, and it introduces a new sectoral database of productivity. The World Bank has created an extraordinary book on productivity, covering a large group of countries and using a wide variety of data sources. There is an emphasis on emerging and developing economies, whereas the prior literature has concentrated on developed economies. The book seeks to understand growth patterns and quantify the role of (among other things) the reallocation of factors, technological change, and the impact of natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This book is must-reading for specialists in emerging economies but also provides deep insights for anyone interested in economic growth and productivity. Martin Neil Baily Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution Former Chair, U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers This is an important book at a critical time. As the book notes, global productivity growth had already been slowing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and collapses with the pandemic. If we want an effective recovery, we have to understand what was driving these long-run trends. The book presents a novel global approach to examining the levels, growth rates, and drivers of productivity growth. For anyone wanting to understand or influence productivity growth, this is an essential read. Nicholas Bloom William D. Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University The COVID-19 pandemic hit a global economy that was already struggling with an adverse pre-existing condition—slow productivity growth. This extraordinarily valuable and timely book brings considerable new evidence that shows the broad-based, long-standing nature of the slowdown. It is comprehensive, with an exceptional focus on emerging market and developing economies. Importantly, it shows how severe disasters (of which COVID-19 is just the latest) typically harm productivity. There are no silver bullets, but the book suggests sensible strategies to improve growth prospects. John Fernald Schroders Chaired Professor of European Competitiveness and Reform and Professor of Economics, INSEAD

This paper reviews economic developments in Kenya during 1990–95. Real GDP growth decelerated from 4.3 percent in 1990 to close to zero in 1992/93. Inflation accelerated from 12 percent in the 12-month period ended December 1989 to 34 percent in March 1993. The central government’s budget deficit increased from 6.7 percent in 1989/90 to 11.4 percent of GDP in 1992/93. Broad money growth (M2) accelerated from 21 percent in the 12-month period ended December 1991 to 36 percent in March 1993.

Productivity has again moved to center stage in two critical academic and policy debates: the slowing of global growth amid spectacular technological advances, and developing countries’ frustratingly slow progress in catching up to the technological frontier. Productivity Revisited brings together the new conceptual advances of 'second-wave' productivity analysis that have revolutionized the study of productivity, calling much previous analysis into question while providing a new set of tools for approaching these debates. The book extends this analysis and, using unique data sets from multiple developing countries, grounds it in the developing-country context. It calls for rebalancing away from an exclusive focus on misallocation toward a greater focus on upgrading firms and facilitating the emergence of productive new establishments. Such an approach requires a supportive environment and various types of human capital--managerial, technical, and actuarial--necessary to cultivate new transformational firms. The book is the second volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers.

In this book we assemble a range of evidence from a range of sources with a view to developing an improved understanding of recent trends in agricultural productivity around the world. The fundamental purpose is to better understand the nature of the long-term growth in the supply of food and its principal determinants. We pursue this purpose from two perspectives. One is from a general interest in the world food situation in the long run. The other is from an interest in the implications of U.S. and global productivity patterns for U.S. agriculture.

This volume is a collection of selected empirical studies on determinants of economic growth in Africa. Grouped into three parts, chapters examine the influence of financial sources and economic growth; sources of productivity growth; and prices, exchange rates and trade relationships with growth in regions in Africa or the continent as a whole. This edited book is authored by African experts in the field who employ diverse up-to-date data and methods to provide robust empirical results based on representative firms, household surveys and secondary country level data covering individuals or multiple countries on the continent. It contains a wealth of empirical evidence, deep analyses and sound recommendations for policymakers and researchers for designing and implementing effective social and national policies and strategies to prevent and to reduce poverty and its negative effects on poor households and in poor regions. The volume will be a useful resource for policymakers and researchers involved in promoting economic growth and fighting poverty. It will also appeal to a broader audience interested in economic development, resource economics, policies, economic welfare and inclusive growth.

This report presents a comprehensive overview of recent and longer-term trends in productivity levels and growth in OECD countries, accession countries, key partners and some G20 countries.