Is Poland the Next Spain?

FRB of Boston Public Policy Paper No. 04-8

59 Pages Posted: 1 Feb 2005

See all articles by Francesco Caselli

Francesco Caselli

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Silvana Tenreyro

London School of Economics (LSE)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 2004

Abstract

We revisit Western Europe's record with labor-productivity convergence and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ones through both higher rates of physical capital accumulation and greater total factor productivity (TFP) gains. These (relatively) high rates of capital accumulation and TFP growth reflect convergence along two margins. One margin (between industries) is a massive reallocation of labor from agriculture to manufacturing and services, which have higher capital intensity and use resources more efficiently. The other margin (within industries) reflects capital deepening and technology catch-up at the industry level. In Eastern Europe the employment share of agriculture is typically quite large, and agriculture is particularly unproductive. Hence, there are potential gains from sectoral reallocation. However, the between-industry component of the East's income gap is quite small. Hence, the East seems to have only one real margin to exploit: the within-industry one. Coupled with the fact that within-industry productivity gaps are enormous, this suggests that convergence will take a long time. On the positive side, however, Eastern Europe already has levels of human capital similar to those of Western Europe. This is good news because human capital gaps have proved very persistent in Western Europe's experience. Hence, Eastern Europe does start out without the handicap that is harder to overcome.

JEL Classification: F15, F43, N10, O11, O14, O47

Suggested Citation

Caselli, Francesco and Tenreyro, Silvana, Is Poland the Next Spain? (June 2004). FRB of Boston Public Policy Paper No. 04-8, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=649803 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.649803

Francesco Caselli

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Economics ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Silvana Tenreyro (Contact Author)

London School of Economics (LSE) ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

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