This book looks at the growth experiences of various Latin American and European countries from a comparative perspective, with attention to the role of growth and productivity sources in confronting challenges like the exit from the current crisis or future policy design.

It brings together nine contributions from eminent South American and European analysts who explore the growth and productivity drivers of a wide range of countries, based on the talks given at an international seminar on Productivity and Growth in Latin America and Europe: Recent Experiences and Approaches, organized in October 2008 in Buenos Aires by the BBVA Foundation and the Valencian Economic Research Institute (Ivie).

Each article discusses the results of empirical research projects drawing on the most advanced approaches in growth accounting. Most of them span several decades and utilize recent databases which provide a substantially more reliable vision of the stock of factors and changes in their relative quality, enabling new international comparisons which enrich the book’s analysis.