This paper evaluates explanations for China's growth slowdown. The natural tendency for rapidly growing economies to slow down is a major factor, along with problems bequeathed by unbalanced growth, including a declining ICOR, slowing total factor productivity growth, and rising indebtedness. A...

Using international data starting in 1957, we construct a sample of cases where fast-growing economies slow down. The evidence suggests that rapidly growing economies slow down significantly, in the sense that the growth rate downshifts by at least 2 percentage points, when their per capita...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

We analyze the incidence and correlates of growth slowdowns in fast-growing middle-income countries, extending the analysis of an earlier paper (Eichengreen et al., 2012a). We continue to find dispersion in the per capita income at which slowdowns occur. But in contrast to our earlier analysis...

In 1945, many Europeans still heated with coal, cooled their food with ice, and lacked indoor plumbing. Today, things could hardly be more different. Over the second half of the twentieth century, the average European's buying power tripled, while working hours fell by a third. <i>The European...</i>

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent litera- ture has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimiz- ing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...