No. 527 - Endogenous growth in open economies: A survey

Endogenous growth has set a new paradigm for macroeconomic analysis. This paper overviews the most relevant theoretical contributions of this literature for the analysis of open economies, highlighting their implications both for the effects of crosscountry integration on output convergence and for the overall growth performance of the integrated economy, as compared to that of an identical group of autarchic countries. The literature is divided into three major classes, studying, respectively, the effects of factor mobility, the role of international trade, and the consequences of technology diffusion. The main conclusion is that knowledge spillovers can go a long way in explaining the differences in growth performances across countries, but additional research is needed to completely understand the mechanisms driving their international diffusion.