This paper explores the link between trade structure, trade specialization and per capita incomegrowth. It is argued that industrial upgrading in export specialization patterns has a positive long-rungrowth effect, while the effect of structural change in industrial import patterns is in...

This paper contributes to the empirical literature by providing a quantitative measurement of the influence of regional trade integration on productivity. For this purpose we address the link between trade and productivity thanks to knowledge spillovers in a multi-country model. The...

Unlike in Asia, the manufacturing sector has not (yet) become a driver of structural change in Africa. One common explanation is that the natural resource-focus of many African economies leads to Dutch disease effects. To test this argument for the case of newly found oil in Ghana we develop a...

In the second half of the 1990s, labor productivity growth rose in the United States and declined in most parts of Europe. This paper documents changes in capital deepening and multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth in information and communication technology (ICT) and non-ICT sectors. We...

A long-held view among macroeconomists in the UK and US is that sustained currency over valuation – often the result of financial-sector dominance – weakens domestic macroeconomic performance and results in premature deindustrialization. Similar concerns have been expressed about persistent,...

In this paper, we document the fact that countries that have experienced occasional financial crises have on average grown faster than countries with stable financial conditions. We measure the incidence of crisis with the skewness of credit growth, and find that it has a robust negative effect...

In the last half of the 1990s, labor productivity growth rose in the U.S. and fell almost everywhere in Europe. We document changes in both capital deepening and multifactor productivity (MFP) growth in both the information and communication technology (ICT) and non-ICT sectors. We view MFP...

This paper clarifies one of the puzzling results of the economic growth literature: The impact of military expenditure is frequently found to be non-significant or negative, yet most countries spend a large fraction of their GDP on defense and the military. We start by empirical evaluation of...

In this paper, we document the fact that countries that have experienced occasional financial crises have, on average, grown faster than countries with stable financial conditions. We measure the incidence of crisis with the skewness of credit growth, and find that it has a robust negative...