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World War II and Convergence

David Cook

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2002

Proxies that measure the effect of World War II on a country's capital stock are used as instruments for estimating standard cross-country growth regressions. The war's destruction should offer a natural experiment that allows us to consistently estimate the speed at which productivity growth converges to its long-run path. This paper presents evidence that convergence rates are approximately 4% to 6% per annum, substantially larger than conventional wisdom.

DOI
10.1162/003465302317331964
Volume
84 (1)
Pages
131-138
Language
en
Export
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