Growth accounting in items of turbulence and death: efficiency, technology, capital accumulation and human capital 1929-1950

We employ a non-parametrical approach to growth accounting (Data Envelopment Analysis, DEA) to disentangle the proximate sources of labour productivity growth in 41 nations between 1929 and 1950 by decomposing productivity growth into four components: technological change; efficiency catch-up (movements towards the production frontier), capital accumulation and human capital accumulation. We show that efficiency catch-up generally explains productivity growth, whereas technological change and factor accumulation were limited and distorted by the effects of war. War clearly hampered efficiency. Moreover, an unbalanced ratio of human capital to physical capital (a gap to the technological leader) was crucial for efficiency catching-up.DEA, growth accounting, productivity, interwar period

Did Globalization Drive Convergence? Identifying Cross-Country Growth Regimes in the Long Run

This paper is the fi?rst to apply a fi?nite mixture model to a sample of 64 nations to endogenously analyze the cross-country growth behavior over the period 1870-2003. Results show that growth patterns were segmented in two worldwide regimes, the one characterized by convergence in per capita income, and the other by divergence. Interestingly, when three historical epochs are distinctly analyzed, in order to investigate the empirical link between globalization and convergence, the dynamics which dominated over the whole period seem to have emerged only during the post-1950 years. In contrast, the First Global Wave was marked by persistent heterogeneities.Globalization; Economic growth; Income convergence; Multiple regimes; Mixture models

Did Globalization Lead to Segmentation? Identifying Cross-Country Growth Regimes in the Long-Run

Economic historians have stressed that income convergence was a key feature of the 'OECD-club' and that globalization was among the accelerating forces of this process in the long-run. This view has however been challenged, since it suffers from an ad hoc selection of countries. In the paper, a mixture model is applied to a sample of 64 countries to endogenously analyze the cross-country growth behavior over the period 1870-2003. Results show that growth patterns were segmented in two worldwide regimes, the fi?rst one being characterized by convergence, and the other one denoted by divergence. Interestingly, when three historical epochs are analyzed separately (1870-1913; 1913-1950; and 1950-2003), the dynamics which come to dominate over the whole period emerged only during the post-1950 years. In contrast, the First Global Wave was marked by global divergence. Therefore, history does not provide unambiguous evidence about globalization and convergence.globalization; economic growth; income convergence; multiple regimes; mixture models

Swedish regional GDP 1855-2000 : estimations and general trends in the Swedish regional system

This paper uses a method devised by Geary and Stark to estimate regional GDPs for 24 Swedish provinces 1855-2007. In empirical tests, we find that the Swedish estimations yield results of good precision, comparable to those reported in the international literature. From the literature, we generate six expectations concerning the development of regional GDPs in Sweden. Using the GDP estimations, we test these expectations empirically. We find that the historical regional GDPs show a high correlation over time, but that the early industrialization process co-evolved with a dramatic redistribution of productive capacity. We show that the regional inequalities in GDP per capita were at their lowest point in modern history in the early 1980s. However, while efficiency in the regional system has never been as equal, absolute regional differences in scale of production has increased dramatically over our investigated period. This process has especially benefited the metropolitan provinces. We also sketch a research agenda from our results.Industrialization, Regional inequality, Regional income, Economic growth

Electrification and energy productivity

Efficiency in energy use is crucial for sustainable development. We use cointegration analyses to investigate the effect of electricity on energy productivity in Swedish industry 1930-1990. Electricity augmented energy productivity in those industrial branches that used electricity for multiple purposes. This productivity effect goes beyond “book-keeping effects”, i. e. it is not only the result of electricity being produced in one sector (taking the energy transformation losses) and consumed in another (receiving the benefits).Energy; electricity; sustainable development; productivity

Relative Sources of European Regional Productivity Convergence: A Bootstrap Frontier Approach

This paper addresses the issue of Western European regional productivity growth and convergence by means of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), decomposing labour productivity into efficiency change, technical change and capital accumulation. The decomposition shows that most regions have fallen behind the production frontier in efficiency and that capital accumulation has had a diverging effect on the labour productivity distribution. Using bootstrapping methods, the paper also accounts for the inherent bias and the stochastic elements in the efficiency estimation. It is found that the relative ranking of the efficiency scores remains stable after the bias-correction, even after controlling for spatially correlated measurement errors, and that the DEA successfully identifies the regions on the production frontier as significantly more efficient than other regions

Development blocks and the second industrial revolution – Sweden 1900-1970

The paper explores development blocks around electrification at a 14 sector level in the Swedish economy 1900-1974. We suggest that long-run cointegration relations in combination with mutually Granger-causing short-run effects form a development block. One block centred on electricity that comprises five more sectors is found. In addition we demonstrate that increasing its electricity share makes a sector grow faster, and by testing the electricity share versus the growth rates we find another development block around electricity, party overlapping the first one.development block; electricity; GPT; second industrial revolution

Trends and cycles in regional economic growth : how spatial differences formed the Swedish growth experience 1860-2009.

Using a novel dataset on regional GDP per worker 1860-2009, this paper analyzes communalities in regional long-term growth trajectories for 24 Swedish provinces. Wavelet Analysis and Principal Component Analysis are used to decompose regional growth trajectories, and to assess to what extent growth in regions share common trend and cyclical properties. It is found that regional trend growth shows strong common features among groups of regions. Primarily natural resource rich regions benefited from the First Industrial Revolution. Contrary to regional development in many other European economies, a strong growth surge in Sweden later benefited virtually the whole country during the Second Industrial Revolution. Growth in this countrywide trend slowed down in the 1970s, when the metropolitan regions became main growth engines. In mid- and short-term cyclical movements regions display more heterogeneous growth patterns, and evidence of mid-term sequential lead-lag patterns in regional growth is found, especially between core and periphery.Economic history; Economic geography; Regional growth; Wavelet analysis; Sweden;

Regional GDP estimates for Sweden, 1571-1850

This paper provides regional GDP estimates for the 24 Swedish regions (NUTS-3) for the benchmark year 1571 and for 11 ten-year benchmarks for the period 1750-1850. The 1571 estimates are based on tax sources and agricultural statistics. The 1750-1850 estimates are produced following the widely used methodology by Geary and Stark (2002): labour force figures from population censuses at regional level are used to allocate to regions the national estimates of agriculture, industry and services while wages are used to correct for productivity differentials. By connecting our series to the existing ones by Enflo et al. (2014) for the period 1860-2010, we are able to produce the longest set of regional GDP series to date for any single country

Coping with regional inequality in Sweden : structural change, migrations and policy, 1860-2000

In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted Ushaped curve, growing during industrialisation and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden’s regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not show this U-shaped pattern. Accordingly, today’s regional income inequality in Sweden is lower than in other European countries. We note that the prime mover behind the long-run reduction in regional income differentials was structural change, whereas neo-classical and technological forces played a relatively less important role. However, this process of regional income convergence can be divided into two major periods. During the first period (1860-1940), the unrestricted action of market forces, particularly the expansion of markets and high rates of internal and international migrations, led to the compression of regional income differentials. In the subsequent period (1940-2000), the intended intervention of successive governments appears to have also been important for the evolution of regional income inequality. Regional convergence was intense from 1940 to 1980. In this period, governments aided the convergence in productivity among industries and the reallocation of the workforce from the declining to the thriving regions and economic sectors. During the next period (1980-2000), when regional incomes diverged, governments subsidised firms and people in the declining areas.Financial support from the donors of the International Special Fellowship at Lund University School of Economics and Management is gratefully acknowledged (Visiting Fellows Program 2). Rosés also acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project no. ECO2009- 13331-C02-01. Enflo also gratefully acknowledges funding from the Swedish Research Council (project no. 2008-2023) and from the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius foundation (project no W2008-0357:1