TY  - JOUR
AU  - Doppelhofer,Gernot
AU  - Miller,Ronald I.
AU  - Sala-i-Martin,Xavier
TI  - Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7750
PY  - 2000
Y2  - June 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7750
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7750.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Gernot Doppelhofer
E-Mail: gd237@cam.ac.uk

Xavier Sala-i-Martin
Department of Economics
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street, 1005
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212/854-7055
Fax: 212/854-8059
E-Mail: xs23@columbia.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -