Cross-country growth empirics and model uncertainty: An overview

Arbeitspapier

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of empirical cross-country growth literature. The paper begins with describing the basic framework used in recent empirical cross-country growth research. Even though this literature was mainly inspired by endogenous growth theories, the neoclassical growth model is still the workhorse for cross-country growth empirics. The second part of the paper emphasises model uncertainty, which is indeed immense but generally neglected in the empirical cross-country growth literature. The most outstanding feature of the literature is that a large number of factors have been suggested as fundamental growth determinants. Together with the small sample property, this leads to an important problem: model uncertainty. The questions which factors are more fundamental in explaining growth dynamics and hence growth differences are still the subject of academic research. Recent attempts based on general-to-specific modeling or model averaging are promising but have their own limits. Finally, the paper highlights the implications of model uncertainty for policy evaluation.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Economics Discussion Papers ; No. 2011-37

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General ; Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
• Subject: Economic growth ; convergence ; cross-country growth ; regression ; model uncertainty ; policy evaluation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ulaşan, Bülent
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
• (where): Kiel
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/49538
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET