NOTE: Mystery probably resolved! See update below. Here was the original post, for posterity: While recently complaining about the overselling of static-efficiency policies, I asserted that rich countries have all grown at about the same long-term rate, despite decade-long divergences. I was talking, of course, about Total Factor Productivity, which at long horizons should be determined by technology. I had been under the impression that over the last three decades or so, the rich countries had all experienced similar rates of TFP growth. My source for that was the OECD's time-series on multifactor productivity ( another name for TFP). Here is a chart of those OECD productivity numbers since 1985: As you can see, most rich countries grew their TFP at the same average rate, consistent with the idea that TFP mostly measures technology in the long term, and that technology spreads rather easily between rich countries. A few countries, like Korea, Ireland, and Finland, did much bett...
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