Economic Growth and Productivity

Economic growth and productivity research examines why some economies expand and improve living standards over time while others stagnate, tracing the roles of institutions, technological adoption, education, and demographic change in shaping long-run outcomes. Understanding how knowledge spreads across firms and countries, how schooling translates into productive capacity, and how formal rules and governance structures enable or obstruct investment has become central to explaining the large income gaps observed across regions. Researchers debate, for instance, whether differences in productivity growth stem primarily from the pace at which new technologies diffuse or from the quality of human capital and institutional environments that determine whether those technologies are actually put to use. Active work is also pushing into how demographic shifts—falling fertility, aging populations—interact with savings, labor supply, and innovation to alter growth trajectories in ways that standard models have struggled to capture.

Works

116,128

Total citations

1,907,174

Keywords

InstitutionsEconomic DevelopmentTechnology DiffusionHuman CapitalProductivity GrowthEducational Attainment