I believe that the consensus view among students of long term growth is
that the period 1945 - 70 was the exceptional period and subsequent
experience is closer to the long term experience since the beginning of the
Industrial R Revolution in the late 18th century.
Certainly the present experience has little to do with Keynes' worry about
the onset of a stationary state which was to occur because of a drying up of
new investment opportunities. The continued development of new technologies
has implied no such drying up, although the effects of the latest wave of
new innovations are quite different on the nature of employment, the
distribution of income and other economic variables than growth experiences
of the recent past.
Richard Lipsey
-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of
Avner Offer
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2019 11:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Sixty-year decline in the growth rate of the
industrialised countries
Dear Alan,
Intriguing, though the decline of the rate of growth since the 1970s at
least is a well-known stylized fact.
The paper repository requires access to my personal information, which I do
not want to grant.
Is it possible to post it on a less demanding site?
All best,
Yours truly, Avner Offer
===========================================================================
From Avner Offer, Chichele Professor Emeritus of Economic History,
University of Oxford
All Souls College, High St., Oxford OX1 4AL, tel. +44
(0)7551960880
email: [log in to unmask]
personal website:
Most recent books:
-The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy and the
Market Turn
(Princeton University Press, 2016).
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10841.html
-Burn Mark: A Photographic Memoir of the Six Day War (Lintel Press,
2014). See www.avneroffer.net
________________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of
[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 27 January 2019 18:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SHOE] Sixty-year decline in the growth rate of the industrialised
countries
Dear Friends
Our data group has been researching the long-run history of growth and came
up with a result that surprised me to some extent, although theoretically it
confirms Keynes' views on the stationary state. It seems that the average
growth rate of the industrialised countries has been declining, with only
(historically) minor cyclic departures, since the early 1950s. The trend is
strong and robust and is confirmed for a variety of measures of growth, and
definitions of the industrialised countries.
I am intrigued that this appears to have been overlooked or at least, is not
widely known or referred to. So I wonder if in fact, other research has come
up with similar results. If anyone knows of such, do get in touch.
The paper is here:
https://www.academia.edu/38192121/The_sixty-year_downward_trend_of_economic_
growth_in_the_industrialised_countries_of_the_world
Readers may also be interested in the data repository which we are
constructing for long-run macroeconomic data:
https://github.com/axfreeman/Economic-History. If anyone shares our interest
in curating historical macroeconomic data, or has data that they wish to be
shared with a wider community, do please get in touch.
Regards
Alan
Research Director
Geopolitical Economy Research Group
(www.geopoliticaleconomy.org<http://www.geopoliticaleconomy.org>)
University of Manitoba
|
