How important are human capital, physical capital and total factor productivity for determining state economic growth in the United States, 1840–2000?

Abstract

This paper introduces new data on state-level physical capital by sector and land in the farm sector for the states of the United States from 1840 to 2000. These data are incorporated into aggregate accounting exercises with the aim of comparing cross-state results to those found in cross-country samples. Our aggregate results agree closely with the cross-country literature: input accumulation accounts for most of output growth, between three-fifths and three-quarters, but variation in the growth of TFP accounts for about three-quarters of the variation in the growth rate of output per worker. In convergence accounting, convergence of log TFP accounts for about seventy percent of the observed convergence in log output per worker. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013