Abstract
The paper examines a number of aspects of post-war economic development of the Netherlands in the light of recent ‘out of equilibrium’ growth theory. It contains a comparison of the ‘stylized facts’ of the long run performance of the economies of the United States and the Netherlands which suggests that the US has been on an equilibrium growth path for more than a century, but that the Netherlands followed a radically different growth path, especially after 1945. It is attempted to explain this ‘erratic’ behaviour of the investment ratio and the wage share after 1945 by examining two aspects more in detail: the financing of the acceleration of growth after 1945 and the phase of ‘too rapid’ growth during the 1950s and 1960s, when the growth of the demand for labour tended to be higher than the increase in its supply.
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van Zanden, J.L. Post- war European economic development as an out of equilibrium growth path. The case of the Netherlands. De Economist 148, 539–555 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004117729474
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004117729474