Determinants of long-term growth: New results applying robust estimation and extreme bounds analysis

Two important problems exist in cross-country growth studies: outliers and model uncertainty. Employing Sala-i-Martin’s (1997a,b) data set, we first use robust estimation and analyze to what extent outliers influence OLS regressions. We then use both OLS and robust estimation techniques in applying the Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA) to deal with the problem of model uncertainty. We find that the use of robust estimation affects the list of variables that are significant determinants of economic growth. Also the magnitude of the impact of these variables differs sometimes under the various approaches.First version received: March 2003 / Final version received: June 2004We like to thank two referees for their very helpful comments on a previous version of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.