TY - JOUR AU - Hausmann,Ricardo AU - Pritchett,Lant AU - Rodrik,Dani TI - Growth Accelerations JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 10566 PY - 2004 Y2 - June 2004 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10566 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10566.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Ricardo Hausman Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK St. Cambridge MA 02138 Tel: 617-496-3740 E-Mail: ricardo_hausmann@harvard.edu Lant Pritchett Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK St. Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617 496 4562 E-Mail: lant_pritchett@harvard.edu Dani Rodrik John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/495-9454 Fax: 617/496-5747 E-Mail: dani_rodrik@harvard.edu AB - Unlike most cross-country growth analyses, we focus on turning points in growth performance. We look for instances of rapid acceleration in economic growth that are sustained for at least eight years and identify more than 80 such episodes since the 1950s. Growth accelerations tend to be correlated with increases in investment and trade, and with real exchange rate depreciations. Political-regime changes are statistically significant predictors of growth accelerations. External shocks tend to produce growth accelerations that eventually fizzle out, while economic reform is a statistically significant predictor of growth accelerations that are sustained. However, growth accelerations tend to be highly upredictable: the vast majority of growth accelerations are unrelated to standard determinants and most instances of economic reform do not produce growth accelerations. ER -