Productivity, Technology and Economic Growth

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Bart van Ark, Simon K. Kuipers, Gerard H. Kuper

      Pages 1-16

3. Understanding Growth Regimes

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

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   2. Interpreting the “One Big Wave” in U.S. Long-term Productivity Growth

      • Robert J. Gordon

      Pages 19-65

   3. Surveying Two Centuries of Dutch Growth, 1807–1995

      • Jan Luiten van Zanden

      Pages 67-89

   4. Institutions and Economic Growth in Postwar Europe

      • Barry Eichengreen, Pablo Vazquez

      Pages 91-128

4. Determinants of Productivity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

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   2. The Interaction between Business Cycles and Productivity Growth

      • James R. Malley, V. Anton Muscatelli, Ulrich Woitek

      Pages 131-157

   3. Productivity, Income and Technological Change in the Netherlands: Causes and Explanations of Divergent Trends

      • Bart van Ark, Jakob de Haan

      Pages 159-186

   4. Labour Productivity Growth in Dutch Business Services

      • H. P. van der Wiel

      Pages 187-226

   5. Productivity and Specificity in Factor Inputs

      • Eric J. Bartelsman

      Pages 227-250

5. Technology Diffusion and Growth

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 251-251

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   2. Knowledge, Technology, and Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution

      • Joel Mokyr

      Pages 253-292

   3. Human Capital, R&D, Productivity Growth and Assimilation of Technologies in the Netherlands

      • Bas Jacobs, Richard Nahuis, Paul J. G. Tang

      Pages 293-315

   4. The Effect of Pharmaceutical Utilisation and Innovation on Hospitalisation and Mortality

      • Frank Lichtenberg

      Pages 317-344

   5. Productivity, R&D Spillovers and Trade

      • Jan Fagerberg, Bart Verspagen

      Pages 345-360

   6. Do Technology Spillovers Matter for Growth?

      • Marieke Rensman, Gerard H. Kuper

      Pages 361-389

6. Back Matter

   Pages 391-400

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Productivity, Technology and Economic Growth presents a selection of recent research advances on long term economic growth. While the contributions stem from both economic history, macro- and microeconomics and the economics of innovation, all papers depart from a common viewpoint: the key factor behind long term growth is productivity, and the latter is primarily driven by technological change. Most contributions show implicitly or explicitly that technological change is at least partly dependent on growth itself. Furthermore, technology appears to interact strongly with investment in physical and human capital as well as with changes in historical, political and institutional settings.
Together these papers are an up-to-date account of the remarkable convergence in theoretical and empirical work on productivity and growth over the past decades. The first part deals with the characteristics of growth regimes over longer periods, ranging from 20 years to two centuries. The next four chapters study the determinants of productivity growth and, in some cases, productivity slowdown during the last quarter of the twentieth century. The final five chapters focus on the role of technology and innovation as the key determinants of growth. Productivity, Technology and Economic Growth is, therefore, a welcome collection for academic scholars and graduate students in economics, history and related social sciences as well as for policy makers.

• Economic history
• economic growth
• growth

• University of Groningen and N.W. Posthumus Institute, Groningen, The Netherlands

  Bart Ark

• University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

  Simon K. Kuipers, Gerard H. Kuper

Bart van Ark is professor in Economics of Productivity and Technology Policy. He is associated with the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, and The Conference Board, a business research organisation in Europe and the United States. Simon K. Kuipers is professor in Macroeconomics and presently Chairman of the Executive Board of the University of Groningen. He is the Honorary Editor of De Economist, Quarterly Review of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association. Gerard Kuper is assistant professor in Macroeconomics. Kuper is associated with the CCSO Centre for Economic Research and research fellow of the Research School on Systems, Organisation and Management at the University of Groningen.

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