Empirical analysis reveals no unconditional convergence in manufacturing productivity across nations from 1990 to 2018, challenging traditional industrialization models for economic growth.
The movement of labor out of agriculture is a central feature of the development process. A long-held view is that successful development requires that much of the labor released from agriculture be allocated to manufacturing rather than services. Rodrik's (2013) finding of unconditional convergence for manufacturing productivity, using data from UNIDO, provided empirical support for this view. We argue that the UNIDO data are ill-suited for studying cross-country productivity dynamics. Using recently released GGDC data designed for this purpose, we revisit the issue and find no evidence of unconditional convergence in manufacturing productivity over 1990–2018. (JEL D24, J24, L60, O13, O14, O47, Q10)
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Herrendorf et al. (2026) studied this question.
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