Demographics and recent productivity performance: insights from cross-country comparisons

Paul Beaudry, Fabrice Collard and David Green

Canadian Journal of Economics, 2005, vol. 38, issue 2, 309-344

Abstract: Over the last few decades, countries have experienced quite different patterns of productivity growth. In this paper, we emphasize the role of country level demographics in explaining these differences. In particular, looking over the period 1960-2002, we show that cross-country data support the notion that, starting in the late 1970s, countries went through a period of technological transition that lasted at least until the mid-1990s for the fastest adjusting countries and is still proceeding for the slower adjusting countries. The main claim of the paper is that the country-level rate of labour growth was a key factor driving the speed of adjustment to the new technological paradigm, implying that much of the cross-country difference in economic performance over recent decades can be explained by demographic differences across countries as opposed to the many other factors emphasized in the literature.

JEL-codes: O33 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0008-4085.2005.00282.x (text/html)
access restricted to subscribers

Related works:
Journal Article: Demographics and recent productivity performance: insights from cross‐country comparisons (2005)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cje:issued:v:38:y:2005:i:2:p:309-344

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.economic ... ionen/membership.php

Access Statistics for this article

Canadian Journal of Economics is currently edited by Zhiqi Chen

More articles in Canadian Journal of Economics from Canadian Economics Association Canadian Economics Association Prof. Werrner Antweiler, Treasurer UBC Sauder School of Business 2053 Main Mall Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Prof. Werner Antweiler ().