IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oeg/wpaper/2003-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Europe Chasing the American Frontier

Author

Listed:
  • Gordon, Robert J.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the gap between the economic performance of the United States compared to the main western European countries over the last two centuries. Various questions are addressed. First, why has the U. S. represented the frontier of economic performance for most of the last two centuries? Second, why did Europe not catch up steadily and converge to the U.S. level, as implied by many growth models? That is, why did Europe fall so far back beneath the frontier and take so long to catch up? Third, how do we interpret data showing that Europe has recently almost caught up with the U.S. in the level of output per hour (labor productivity) but remains significantly behind in output per capita? In other words, how could Europe be so productive yet so poor?

Suggested Citation

  • Gordon, Robert J., 2003. "Europe Chasing the American Frontier," Efficiency Series Papers 2003/07, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    • Handle: RePEc:oeg:wpaper:2003/07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.unioviedo.es/oeg/ESP/esp_2003_07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul A. David & Gavin Wright, 1999. "Early Twentieth Century Productivity Growth Dynamics: An Inquiry into the Economic History of "Our Ignorance"," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _033, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    2. Devine, Warren D., 1983. "From Shafts to Wires: Historical Perspective on Electrification," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 347-372, June.
    3. John W. Kendrick, 1961. "Productivity Trends in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kend61-1, March.
    4. Goldin, Claudia, 1998. "America's Graduation from High School: The Evolution and Spread of Secondary Schooling in the Twentieth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 345-374, June.
    5. Paul David & Gavin Wright, 1999. "Early Twentieth Century Productivity Growth Dynamics: An Inquiry into the Economic History of Our Ignorance," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _033, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. Abramovitz, Moses, 1986. "Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(2), pages 385-406, June.
    7. Paul M. Romer, 1987. "Crazy Explanations for the Productivity Slowdown," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 163-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Claudia Goldin & Robert A. Margo, 1992. "The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 1-34.
    9. Wright, Gavin, 1990. "The Origins of American Industrial Success, 1879-1940," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 651-668, September.
    10. Nelson, Richard R & Wright, Gavin, 1992. "The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership: The Postwar Era in Historical Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 1931-1964, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ronald Schettkat & Joep Damen, 2004. "Demand Patterns and Employment Structures an Aggregate Analysis," DEMPATEM Working Papers wp11, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert J. Gordon, 2004. "Two Centuries of Economic Growth: Europe Chasing the American Frontier," NBER Working Papers 10662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Crafts, Nicholas & O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2014. "Twentieth Century Growth*This research has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 249546.," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 263-346, Elsevier.
    3. Harald Edquist & Magnus Henrekson, 2006. "Technological Breakthroughs and Productivity Growth," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, pages 1-53, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. Crafts, Nicholas, 2002. "The Solow Productivity Paradox in Historical Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 3142, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Greasley, David & Oxley, Les, 1998. "Comparing British and American Economic and Industrial Performance 1860-1993: A Time Series Perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 171-195, April.
    6. Robert J. Gordon, 2000. "Interpreting the "One Big Wave" in U.S. Long-Term Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 7752, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Gordon, Robert J., 2000. "Interpreting the 'One Big Wave' in US Long-Term Productivity Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 2608, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. McLean, Ian W., 2007. "Why was Australia so rich?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 635-656, October.
    9. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson & T. J. Hatton, 1993. "Mass migration, commodity market integration and real wage convergence : the late nineteenth century Atlantic economy," Working Papers 199325, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    10. Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Sandro Sapio, 2004. "Yeast vs. Mushrooms: A Note on Harberger's "A Vision of the Growth Process"," LEM Papers Series 2004/03, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    11. Paul David & Gavin Wright, 1999. "Early Twentieth Century Productivity Growth Dynamics: An Inquiry into the Economic History of Our Ignorance," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _033, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Paul A. David & Gavin Wright, "undated". "General Purpose Technologies and Surges in Productivity: Historical Reflections on the Future of the ICT Revolution," Working Papers 99026, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    13. David, Paul A., 1989. "COMPUTER AND DYNAMO: The Modern Productivity Paradox in a Not-Too Distant Mirror," Economic Research Papers 268373, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    14. Godin, Benoit, 2004. "The New Economy: what the concept owes to the OECD," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 679-690, July.
    15. van Ark, Bart & Smits, Jan Pieter, 2005. "Technology Regimes and Productivity Growth in Europe and the United States: A Comparative and Historical Perspective," Institute of European Studies, Working Paper Series qt1td1h23k, Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley.
    16. Reinstaller, Andreas & Holzl, Werner, 2001. "The Technological Bias in the Establishment of a Technological Regime: the adoption and enforcement of early information processing technologies in US manufacturing, 1870-1930," Research Memorandum 013, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Valpy Fitzgerald & Pablo Astorga & Ame R. Bergés, 2003. "Productivity Growth in Latin America during the Twentieth Century," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _052, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. de la Fuente, Angel, 1997. "The empirics of growth and convergence: A selective review," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 23-73, January.
    19. Field, Alexander J., 2007. "The equipment hypothesis and US economic growth," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 43-58, January.
    20. Broadberry, S. N., 1995. "Comparative productivity levels in manufacturing since the Industrial Revolution: Lessons from Britain, America, Germany and Japan," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 71-95, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oeg:wpaper:2003/07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Luis Orea or David Roibas (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/geovies.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.