We apply recent results from the statistics literature to test for multimodality of worldwide distributions of several (unweighted and population-weighted) measures of labor productivity. Specifically, we employ Silverman (Bump) and Dip modality tests, calibrated to correct for their incorrect...

Using nonparametric, production-frontier methods, we decompose labor productivity growth into components attributable to technological change (shifts in the world production frontier), technological catch-up (movements toward or away from the frontier), and physical and human capital...

In this paper we use the Kumar and Russell ["American Economic Review" (2002) Vol. 92, pp. 527-548] growth-accounting procedure to examine cross-country growth during the 1990s. Using a data set comprising developed, newly industrialized, developing and transitional economies, we decompose the...

In this paper we compare two flexible estimators of technical efficiency in a cross-sectional setting: the nonparametric kernel SFA estimator of Fan, Li and Weersink (1996) to the nonparametric bias corrected DEA estimator of Kneip, Simar andWilson (2008). We assess the finite sample performance...

We employ bootstrap techniques in a production frontier framework to provide statistical inference for each component in the decomposition of labor productivity growth, which has essentially been ignored in this literature. We show that only two of the four components have significantly...