Determinants of economic growth: A survey of recent developments and empirical evidence for the period 1960-2000

This paper surveys recent developments in the empirical literature on economic growth as well as presents own estimates on the determinants of growth for the period 1960-2000. The latter is made by standardizing the set of control variables usually included in panel data regressions -those derived from the steady state in the Solow-Swan model-. We find that there is no a single determinant of growth; among the determinants there are policy variables such as macroeconomic stability, provision of credit to the private sector and the degree of institutional development; and exogenous variables such as terms of trade and geographical features -latitude and land locking-. The paper also shows that the conditional convergence hypothesis hold and finds a rate of convergence similar to prior studies.