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We construct a simple endogenous growth model to analyse the relationship between the composition of fiscal policy, economic growth and employment. The government sets different tax rates on labour income, capital income, and private consumption to finance productive expenditures, utility-enhancing consumption expenditures, and transfers related to structural non-employment. Our model is able to explain the different employment and growth records of European Countries and the US since the 1990s. We use the model to investigate the strength of the effects of various fiscal policy shocks on steady state employment and growth. We also develop the transitional dynamics for many variables, including welfare. Our results highlight the trade-offs that may occur between performance indicators, and between the short and the long-run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the sources of U.S. labour productivity growth in the late 1990s and presents projections for both output and labour productivity growth. We show that investment in information technology (IT) played a substantial role in the U.S. productivity revival and that similar trends are evident in data for other leading OECD countries. We then outline a methodology for projecting trend output and pro-ductivity growth for the broadly defined U.S. economy. Our base-case projection puts trend productivity growth at 1.78 percent per year over the next decade with a range of 1.14 to 2.38 percent, reflecting fundamental uncertainties about the rate of technical progress in IT-production and investment in IT-equipment and software. Our central projection is below the average growth rate of 2.07 percent during 1995 -2000. Similar projections for Europe must await more complete information. (JEL J2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of σ-convergence, absolute β-convergence and conditional β-convergence are discussed in this paper. The concepts are applied to a variety of data sets that include a large cross-section of 110 countries, the sub-sample of OECD countries, the states within the United States, the prefectures of Japan, and regions within several European countries. Except for the large cross-section of countries, all data sets display strong evidence of σ-convergence and absolute β-convergence. The cross-section of countries exhibits σ-divergence and conditional β-convergence. The speed of conditional convergence, which is very similar across data sets, is close to 2% per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]