Determinants of Long-Term Growth : A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (Bace) Approach

Gernot Doppelhofer ; Ronald I. Miller ; Xavier Sala-i-Martin

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

关键词: growth regressions;    economic growth;    model averaging;    empirical determinants of economic growth;   

DOI  :  https://doi.org/10.1787/834681262223

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: OECD iLibrary

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the robustness of explanatory variables in cross-country economic growth regressions. It employs a novel approach, Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE), which constructs estimates as a weighted average of OLS estimates for every possible combination of included variables. The weights applied to individual regressions are justified on Bayesian grounds in a way similar to the well-known Schwarz criterion. Of 32 explanatory variables we find 11 to be robustly partially correlated with long-term growth and another five variables to be marginally related. Of all the variables considered, the strongest evidence is for the initial level of real GDP per capita ...