Comparing Apples to Oranges : Productivity Convergence and Measurement Across Industries and Countries: Comment

In a widely quoted paper-Bernard and Jones, AER December 1996-it is found that productivity in manufacturing does not show evidence of convergence across selected OECD countries. The main message in this comment is that the absence of convergence in manufacturing is not a robust finding. In particular, it depends heavily of the choice of base year, because the applied conversion factor-expenditure PPPs for total GDP-is not appropriate for measuring productivity in manufacturing. Hence, whether or not productivity in manufacturing converges across OECD countries remains an open question