Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others? / Robert E. Hall, Charles I. Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hall, Robert E.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Jones, Charles I.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w6564.

NBER working paper series no. w6564

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

June 1999.