International growth and volatility in historical perspective

This paper studies the relationship between the volatility and growth of real GDP using a newly constructed panel data set from twelve countries over the 1870 to 1929 period. In addition, many other variables are examined that are related to economic growth. The goal has been to uncover robust empirical regularities on this issue for the period prior to the Great Depression - a period which has been relatively neglected in previous empirical work. The main finding is that there is a robust negative partial correlation between volatility and growth, after controlling for other factors. This result is consistent with recent empirical evidence on the post-World War II period.