The Productivity of Nations

Robert Hall () and Charles I. Jones ()

No 5812, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? Our analysis shows that differences in governmental, cultural, and natural infrastructure are important sources of this variation. According to our results, a high-productivity country (i) has institutions that favor production over diversion, (ii) is open to international trade, (iii) has at least some private ownership, (iv) speaks an international language, and (v) is located in a temperate latitude far from the equator. A favorable infrastructure helps a country both by stimulating the accumulation of human and physical capital and by raising its total factor productivity.

JEL-codes: E23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996-11
Note: EFG PR
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w5812.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Productivity of Nations
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5812

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w5812
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().