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Economic Growth in Europe Since 1945. Edited by Nicholas Crafts and Gianni Toniolo * Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xiii + 600 pp. Figures, tables, and index. Cloth, $80.00. ISBN 0521496276; paper, $29.95. ISBN 052149964X.
This lengthy study is a well-executed, multi-author analysis of West European economic growth since 1945. Its organizing principals are several. First, the book comes close to being geographically comprehensive. Chapter length studies are devoted to Britain (C. Bean & N. Crafts), Belgium (I. Cassiers, P. DeVille & P. M. Solar), France (P Sicsic & C. Wyplosz), Sweden (M. Henrekson, L. Jonung & J. Stynne), Netherlands (B. van Ark, J. de Hann & H. J. de Jong), Portugal (J. L. Cesar das Neves), Spain (L. Prados de la Escosura & J. C. Sanz), Ireland (C. O'Grada & K. O'Rourke), Italy (N. Rossi & G. Toniolo), West Germany (W Carlin), East Germany (A. 0. Ritschl), and Denmark (P. J. Pedersen).
Second, recent innovations in growth economics, often termed endogenous growth theory, organize the methodology of nearly all the chapters. Along with explicit discussions of convergence and catch-up mechanisms, most chapters treat the secular rate of growth of GDP per capita as significantly affected by variations in four factors: the rate of augmented (physical plus human) capital formation, thus accepting that augmented capital has an output elasticity greater than the one implied by their factor share, perhaps even unity; the institutions of education and R&D; scale economies (usually mixed in the measured total factor productivity [TFP] residual); and imperfect competition in industrial output...