Measuring Productivity and Convergence Across Countries and Sectors

ABSTRACT In an effort to understand the evolution of productivity growth across sectors and countries, this paper estimates total factor productivity (TFP) and TFP growth using a semiparametric method applied to 13 OECD countries, leveraging the EU KLEMS data at the industry level over the period 1995–2017. Although TFP growth is low for these countries, there are remarkably different growth experiences among countries and sectors mainly due to differences in agricultural and services sectors. I find that even within Europe, there are two “Europes.” Lastly, I test for ‐ and ‐convergence across countries and sectors, and my results suggest that even if there are differences among countries and sectors, they succeed in some kind of convergence.