The Facts of Economic Growth
Charles I. Jones
Issue Date May 2015
Why are people in the richest countries of the world so much richer today than 100 years ago? And why are some countries so much richer than others? Questions such as these define the field of economic growth. This paper documents the facts that underlie these questions. How much richer are we today than 100 years ago, and how large are the income gaps between countries? The purpose of the paper is to provide an encyclopedia of the fundamental facts of economic growth upon which our theories are built, gathering them together in one place and updating the facts with the latest available data.
In preparation for a new volume of the Handbook of Macroeconomics. I am grateful to Kevin Bryan, John Haltiwanger, Jonathan Haskel, Bart Hobijn, Jihee Kim, Pete Klenow, Marti Mestieri, Chris Tonetti, seminar participants at the Stanford Handbook conference, and the editors John Taylor and Harald Uhlig for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
C.I. Jones, Chapter 1 - The Facts of Economic Growth, Editor(s): John B. Taylor, Harald Uhlig, Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, Volume 2, 2016, Pages 3-69, ISSN 1574-0048, ISBN 9780444594877, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.hesmac.2016.03.002.