Europe Chasing the American Frontier

Robert J. Gordon

No 2003/07, Efficiency Series Papers from University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG)

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the gap between the economic performance of the United States compared to the main western European countries over the last two centuries. Various questions are addressed. First, why has the U. S. represented the frontier of economic performance for most of the last two centuries? Second, why did Europe not catch up steadily and converge to the U.S. level, as implied by many growth models? That is, why did Europe fall so far back beneath the frontier and take so long to catch up? Third, how do we interpret data showing that Europe has recently almost caught up with the U.S. in the level of output per hour (labor productivity) but remains significantly behind in output per capita? In other words, how could Europe be so productive yet so poor?

Pages: 40
Date: 2003
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