| For several decades, cross-country analyses have dominated the literature on economic growth. Recently, these analyses have been extended to include sectoral variation as well as spatial variation across sub-national regions. This paper investigates economic growth and potential determinants of the process of catch-up to technology leaders for several economic sectors, using data for the lower 48 US states from 1963 through 1997. We analyze the potential influence of factors such as human capital, and geographical distance to the technology leader. A spatially explicit growth model in which technological progress is endogenously determined is used to model productivity growth in nine US industries, ranging from mining to government, and including a... |
