A Long-Run Perspective on Unconditional Convergence in Manufacturing: Evidence from U.S. Industrialization

Alexander Klein, León-Ledesma, Miguel and Nicholas Crafts

No 20488, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper examines long-run unconditional convergence of labour productivity in manufacturing across 48 contiguous U.S. states. We construct a detailed panel data set of state-industry pairs with over 120 industries covering the period 1880-2007. The remarkable finding is a rapid rate of unconditional β-convergence: 7.6% per year in the period 1880-2007, and about 6.5% in each period 1880-1940 and 1958-2007. We also find a steep rise in unconditional convergence from 5.5% in 1930-1940 to 10.6% in 1940-1947 and 9.4% in 1947-1958, followed by a considerable drop thereafter. In the years 1958-2007, the rate of convergence in ICT industries (8.3%) is higher than in 1st-Industrial-Revolution (6.3%) or 2nd-Industrial-Revolution (7.0%) industries. We interpret our results as a process of technological catch up between initially laggard Southern manufacturing and manufacturing industries in the North.

JEL-codes: N11 N12 O47 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP20488 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:cpr:ceprdp:20488

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP20488

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().