Industrialisation, Catching Up and Economic Growth: A Comparative Study Across the World's Capitalist Economies

Various hypotheses are examined seeking to explain inter-country convergence at the upper end, but divergence at the lower end, of the world income rankings. A model of disequilibrium growth with sector-specific technological progress and spillover is developed and then estimated on two samples of capitalist economies 1960-85. It is found that the degree of disequilibrium between agriculture and industry is greatest in the least developed economies, but their rate of labor transfer has been slow. Technological spillover has stimulated productivity growth in less developed agricultural sectors, but not in the industrial sectors of the least developed economies.