A quantitative exploration of the Golden Age of European growth

Income per capita in some Western European countries more than tripled in the two and a half decades that followed World War II. The literature has identified several factors behind this outstanding growth episode, specifically; structural change, the Marshall Plan combined with the public provision of infrastructure, the surge of intra-European trade, and the reconstruction process that followed the war. This paper is an attempt to formalize and quantify the contribution of each one of these factors to post-war growth. Our results highlight the importance of reconstruction growth and structural change, and point to the limited role of the Marshall Plan, and the late contribution of intra-European trade.