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Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?"

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Robert E. Hall
  • Charles I. Jones

Abstract

March 11, 1998 Forthcoming, Quarterly Journal of Economics Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? On an accounting basis, our analysis shows that differences in physical capital and educational attainment can only partially explain the variation in output per worker --- we find a large amount of variation in the level of the Solow residual across countries. At a deeper level, we document that the differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are driven by differences in institutions and government policies, which we call social infrastructure. We treat social infrastructure as endogenous, determined historically by location and other factors captured in part by language. This is a revised version of "The Productivity of Nations" (NBER Working Paper No. 5812).

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Paper provided by Stanford University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 98007.

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Date of creation: 11 Mar 1998
Handle: RePEc:wop:stanec:98007
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
  • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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  1. Easterly, William & Kremer, Michael & Pritchett, Lant & Summers, Lawrence H., 1993. "Good policy or good luck?: Country growth performance and temporary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 459-483, December.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Nuevo gobierno: ¿mejor gobernanza y crecimiento?
    by Florentino Felgueroso in Nada Es Gratis on 2011-12-16 05:56:48
  2. The Economist and Scotland's Seven Strengths
    by Brian Ashcroft in Scottish Economy Watch on 2012-04-17 22:53:31
  3. Institutions, Social Infrastructure and Equality
    by Richard Green in Club Troppo on 2010-10-12 06:14:42
  4. The Economist and Scotland's Seven Strengths
    by Brian Ashcroft in Scottish Economy Watch on 2012-04-17 22:53:31
  5. The Skeptics Guide to Institutions – Part 1
    by dvollrath in The Growth Economics Blog on 2014-11-18 17:28:44
  6. The Skeptics Guide to Institutions – Part 2
    by dvollrath in The Growth Economics Blog on 2014-11-20 17:18:55

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  1. > Macroeconomics > Economic Growth
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