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The primary contribution of this paper is to examine the pattern of recent world economic growth taking account of all of the hypotheses expounded above. In contrast to most recent studies on endogenous economic growth, we disaggregate catching-up effects by sector; to the resource re-allocation story, we suggest the innovation of testing the hypothesis that the degree of sectoral disequilibrium may vary systematically according to the level of development; we also allow for rates of technological advance to differ both between sectors and by levels of development. A further contribution is to identify the boundaries between the `growth clubs' on statistical grounds, based on tests of model stability, which allows us to estimate the threshold level of development which is required for assimilation of technological diffusion. We are then in a position to re-evaluate the explanations put forward by Baumol and others for the performances within and between the three `growth clubs'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During several decades and until the end of the 1990s, the theory of structural economic dynamics has been absent in the field of so-called mainstream economic analysis. The literature included only either empirically oriented contributions or developments that were related to so-called critical theoretical approaches of structural change. At the end of the twentieth century, however, mainstream economic theorists changed this situation and began to investigate the field of structural dynamics, often using the Solovian theory of economic growth. During the last two decades, they contributed to change substantially the state of the theory of structural change. This contribution first provides an assessment of the advances realized by these theorists. It then confronts these advances with the so-called alternative or critical theoretical approaches of structural dynamics—namely, Luigi Pasinetti’s contribution and ‘evolutionary’ approaches—in order to provide a more complete picture of structural dynamics in the short and the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

William J. Baumol has made an impressive number of important contributions to our understanding of entrepreneurship. This article presents an interview in which Baumol discusses the role and importance of innovation in the economy, as well as his views on methodological and pedagogical issues. In addition to summarizing briefly Baumol's classic argument on productive, unproductive, and destructive entrepreneurship, the article highlights some areas of his work that are less known among entrepreneurship scholars. In particular, the article discusses Baumol's work on economic growth and his theory of contestable markets. Both topics offer fruitful research venues for those interested in the relationship between strategic entrepreneurship, market entry, and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that innovation is the engine that drives the growth machine of modern capitalist economies. Therefore, not surprisingly, substantial attention has been devoted by economists to the process behind the production of innovations. Three areas have recently emerged as relevant in the field. These are: the impact of spillovers on productivity; the different forms of R&D cooperation and the role of patents in fostering innovations when these are cumulative. In this paper I summarise the relevant literature in these three areas by discussing where the current literature stands and what are its future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research and the Swedish Board of Industrial and Technical Development has given its 2003 International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research to economist William J. Baumol. In this article the authors present and evaluates the contributions of the prize winner to the economics of entrepreneurship and economic growth. As a general theorist William J. Baumol has a long and outstanding record of addressing the real problems of our world. His career is now well into its sixth decade, but new insights still keep pouring out of his prolific pen. Although basically neoclassical, Baumol's ambition has been to extend mainstream economics to be compatible with a wider range of theoretical assumptions and economic phenomena than the received model is capable of addressing in a relevant way.

This article comments on William Baumol's research on the macroeconomics of unbalanced economic growth. According to the author the study of Baumol has developed a model of two sector economy: (1) a progressive sector where labor-saving technical change takes place (2) a non-progressive sector where there is no technical change. The author argues that if the income elasticity of municipal taxes is below unity, the financial problems of cities will grow, provided that the level of services remains unchanged. The author stated that this could happen if the municipal tax base does not grow as fast as labor income.