The recent decline in aggregate labor productivity growth in leading economies has been widely described as a puzzle, even a paradox, leading to extensive research into possible explanations. Our review confirms the magnitude of the slowdown and finds that it is largely driven by a decline in...

We review recent research on the slowdown of labor productivity and examine the contribution of different explanations to this decline. Comparing the post-2005 period with the preceding decade for 5 advanced economies, we seek to explain a slowdown of 0.8 to 1.8pp. We trace most of this to lower...

We review recent research on the slowdown of labor productivity and examine the contribution of different explanations to this decline. Comparing the post-2005 period with the preceding decade for five advanced economies, we seek to explain a slowdown of 0.8 to 1.8pp. We trace most of this to...

This paper examines the extent of non-tariffs barriers to sixteen industrial countries' imports. Using three alternative measures it shows that governmental commodity-specific border-measures affect 27% of all imports and over 34% of imports from developing countries. It also shows that during...