The Sources of Growth in a Technologically Progressive Economy

Gerben Bakker, Nicholas Crafts and Pieter Woltjer

No GD-156, GGDC Research Memorandum from Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen

Abstract: We develop new aggregate and sectoral Total Factor Productivity (TFP) estimates for the United States between 1899 and 1941 through better coverage of sectors and better-measured labor quality, and find TFP-growth was lower than previously thought, broadly based across sectors, and strongly variant intertemporally. We then test and reject three prominent claims. First, the 1930s did not have the highest TFP-growth of the twentieth century. Second, TFP-growth was not predominantly caused by four `great inventions?. Third, TFP-growth was not driven indirectly by spillovers from great inventions such as electricity. Instead, the creative-destruction-friendly American innovation system was the main productivity driver.

Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-ino and nep-tid
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/11370/80e54e17-5213-484e-939b-0e3835b82710 (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:gro:rugggd:gd-156

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GGDC Research Memorandum from Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hanneke Tamling ().