Unconditional Convergence. NBER Working Paper Series. 2011.
AbstractUnlike economies as a whole, manufacturing industries exhibit unconditional convergence in labor productivity. The paper documents this finding for 4-digit manufacturing sectors for a large group of developed and developing countries over the period since 1990. The coefficient of unconditional convergence is estimated quite precisely and is large, at 3.0-5.6 percent per year depending on the estimation horizon. The result is robust to a large number of specification tests, and statistically highly significant. Because of data coverage, these findings should be as viewed as applying to the organized, formal parts of manufacturing.
PDFRevised October 2011. Yes, it does exist, but you have to look for it in manufacturing industries.
Rodrik D, McMillan M.
Globalization, Structural Change, and Productivity Growth. 2011.
PDF DataIn some countries structural change enhances economy-wide productivity, in others it reduces it. Why? Dataset and Employment VA data. Published as Chapter 2 of "Making Globalization Socially Sustainable."
The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. New York and London: W.W. Norton; 2011 pp. 368.
Publisher's VersionAbstractSurveying three centuries of economic history, a Harvard professor argues for a leaner global system that puts national democracies front and center. From the mercantile monopolies of seventeenth-century empires to the modern-day authority of the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, the nations of the world have struggled to effectively harness globalization's promise. The economic narratives that underpinned these eras—the gold standard, the Bretton Woods regime, the "Washington Consensus"—brought great success and great failure. In this eloquent challenge to the reigning wisdom on globalization, Dani Rodrik offers a new narrative, one that embraces an ineluctable tension: we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. When the social arrangements of democracies inevitably clash with the international demands of globalization, national priorities should take precedence. Combining history with insight, humor with good-natured critique, Rodrik's case for a customizable globalization supported by a light frame of international rules shows the way to a balanced prosperity as we confront today's global challenges in trade, finance, and labor markets.