Slowdowns and Meltdowns: Post-war Growth Evidence from 74 Countries

Many countries, both industrialized and developing, appear to have experienced a slowdown in economic growth. We examine a large sample of countries and find that a majority exhibit a significant structural break in their post-war growth rates. In nearly all of these cases the break was followed by a growth slowdown. The breaks fall into two primary periods which delineate countries by developmental and regional characteristics as well as by the magnitude of the subsequent slowdowns.