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Slowdowns And Meltdowns: Postwar Growth Evidence From 74 Countries

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  • Dan Ben-David
  • David H. Papell

Abstract

This paper proposes an explicit test for determining the significance and the timing of slowdowns in economic growth. We examine a large sample of countries and find that a majority - though not all - exhibit a significant structural break in their postwar growth rates. We find that (a) most industrialized countries experienced postwar growth slowdowns in the early 1970s, though (b) the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom did not, and (c) developing countries (and in particular, Latin American countries) tended to experience much more severe slowdowns which, in contrast with the more developed countries, began nearly a decade later. © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog

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  • Dan Ben-David & David H. Papell, 1998. "Slowdowns And Meltdowns: Postwar Growth Evidence From 74 Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 561-571, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:80:y:1998:i:4:p:561-571
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • O5 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies

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