Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?

Robert E. Hall and Charles Jones

No 6564, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: 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.

JEL-codes: E23 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-06
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5177)

Published as The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 114, no. 1, pp. 83-116, February 1999.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others? (1999)
Working Paper: Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?" (1998)
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