The Verdoorn law revisited: A note

In his Fattori che regolano lo sviluppo della produttività del lavoro Verdoorn (1949) presented empirical evidence on the constancy of the ratio of productivity growth to output growth. As a theoretical underpinning he used a neoclassical growth model. The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize that in this model the ratio is constant only in the steady state. If Verdoorn's underpinning of his law is to be correct, the steady-state assumption should be empirically tested. Some available evidence for Verdoorn's sample appears to throw doubt upon this assumption.