Nonlinear Economic Growth: Some Theory and Cross-country Evidence

This paper aims to test the existence of different growth regimes, that is of different relationships between growth rate and income level. We propose a simple nonlinear growth model and test its empirical implications by estimating Markov transition matrices and stochastic kernels. We show that growth is indeed nonlinear: a first phase of slow or zero growth is followed by a take-off and, finally, by a phase of acceleration.We discuss the relevance of these results with respect to the issue of convergence and reversibility of development, in the light of models of structural change and technological diffusion.