IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v2y2010i1p169-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productivity Differences between and within Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Daron Acemoglu
  • Melissa Dell

Abstract

We document substantial within-country (cross-municipality) differences in incomes for a large number of countries in the Americas. A significant fraction of the within-country differences cannot be explained by observed human capital. We conjecture that the sources of within-country and between-country differences are related. As a first step toward a unified framework, we propose a simple model incorporating differences in technological know-how across countries and differences in productive efficiency within countries. (JEL E23, I31, J31, O15, O18, O47, R23)

Suggested Citation

  • Daron Acemoglu & Melissa Dell, 2010. "Productivity Differences between and within Countries," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 169-188, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:2:y:2010:i:1:p:169-88
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.2.1.169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.2.1.169
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/data/2009-0012_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/app/2009-0012_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ciccone, Antonio & Hall, Robert E, 1996. "Productivity and the Density of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 54-70, March.
    2. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    3. Ravi Kanbur, 2005. "Spatial Inequality and Development: Overview of UNU-WIDER Project," Working Papers id:215, eSocialSciences.
    4. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer, 2005. "History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1190-1213, September.
    5. Peter J. Klenow & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 1997. "The Neoclassical Revival in Growth Economics: Has It Gone Too Far?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 73-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    7. Javier Escobal & Maximo Torero, 2003. "Adverse Geography and Differences in Welfare in Peru," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-73, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Kanbur, Ravi & Venables, Anthony J. (ed.), 2005. "Spatial Inequality and Development," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199278633.
    9. Deaton, A. & Zaidi, S., 1999. "Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis," Papers 192, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
    10. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2009. "Temperature and Income: Reconciling New Cross-Sectional and Panel Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 198-204, May.
    11. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1993. "Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262570971, December.
    12. Ravi Kanbur & Tony Venables, 2005. "Introduction: Spatial inequality and development," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-2, January.
    13. David De Ferranti & Guillermo E. Perry & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Michael Walton, 2004. "Inequality in Latin America : Breaking with History?," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15009.
    14. Joana Naritomi & Rodrigo R. Soares & Juliano J. Assunção, 2007. "Rent Seeking and the Unveiling of 'De Facto' Institutions: Development and Colonial Heritage within Brazil," NBER Working Papers 13545, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    2. Nicola Gennaioli & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Human Capital and Regional Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 105-164.
    3. Christian Lessmann, 2012. "Regional Inequality and Decentralization: An Empirical Analysis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(6), pages 1363-1388, June.
    4. Güneş Aşık & Ulaş Karakoç & Şevket Pamuk, 2023. "Regional inequalities and the West–East divide in Turkey since 1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1305-1332, November.
    5. repec:esx:essedp:729 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Lipatov, Vilen & Zoubek, J. Malte, 2020. "Optimal taxation under regional inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    7. Daniel Cohen & Marcelo Soto, 2007. "Growth and human capital: good data, good results," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 51-76, March.
    8. Batuo E. Michael & George Kararach & Issam Malki, 2021. "Working Paper 353 - Inequality and the role of macroeconomic and institutional forces in Africa," Working Paper Series 2479, African Development Bank.
    9. Ciccone, Antonio & Peri, Giovanni, 2002. "Identifying Human Capital Externalities: Theory with an Application to US Cities," CEPR Discussion Papers 3350, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Sherrill Shaffer & Iftekhar Hasan & Mingming Zhou, 2015. "New Small Firms and Dimensions of Economic Performance," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 29(1), pages 65-78, February.
    11. Guillermo E. Perry & Omar S. Arias & J. Humberto López & William F. Maloney & Luis Servén, 2006. "Poverty Reduction and Growth : Virtuous and Vicious Circles," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6997.
    12. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2009_004 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Sherrill Shaffer & Iftekhar Hasan & Mingming Zhou, 2015. "New Small Firms and Dimensions of Economic Performance," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 29(1), pages 65-78, February.
    14. Erich Gundlach, 2003. "Growth Effects of EU Membership: The Case of East Germany," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 237-270, September.
    15. Kieran McQuinn & Karl Whelan, 2007. "Solow ( 1956 ) as a model of cross-country growth dynamics," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 23(1), pages 45-62, Spring.
    16. Lee, Jong-Wha, 2005. "Human capital and productivity for Korea's sustained economic growth," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 663-687, August.
    17. Trejos, Alberto & Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti, 2008. "Trade in intermediate goods and total factor productivity," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 676, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    18. Antonio Ciccone & Giovanni Peri & Douglas Almond, "undated". "Capital, Wages, and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 152, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    19. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 707-720, October.
    20. Qian, Nancy & Lagakos, David & Moll, Benjamin & Porzio, Tommaso, 2012. "Experience Matters: Human Capital and Development Accounting," CEPR Discussion Papers 9253, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Jakob B. Madsen* & Md. Rabiul Islam, 2012. "The Anatomy of the Asian Take-off," Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, vol. 4(2), pages 1-24, July.
    22. Areendam Chanda & Beatrice Farkas, 2009. "Technology-Skill Complementarity and International TFP Differences," DEGIT Conference Papers c014_028, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Productivity Differences between and within Countries (AEJ:MA 2010) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:2:y:2010:i:1:p:169-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.