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Since the mid-1990s, market services have positively influenced labor productivity growth in the US, but not in most European countries. We analyze these cross-country differences in growth dynamics using industry-level measures of output, inputs, and multifactor productivity (MFP) from the new EU KLEMS database. We find that using detailed data has important implications for empirical analysis of policy influences on growth. Increased investment in information and communication technology (ICT) capital and growth in human capital contributed substantially to labor productivity growth in market services across all European countries and the US. However, countries differ most strongly in the rates of efficiency improvement in the use of inputs. We find no evidence of an externality-driven relationship between such efficiency changes and the growth of ICT use or of employment of university-educated workers. We also find that entry liberalization has been beneficial for productivity growth in telecommunications, but not in other service industries.

This contribution to a symposium on Robert Brenner's The Economics of Global Turbulence (2006) notes the vast scope of the book, describing & theorizing on the macroeconomic performance of the advanced capitalist economies -- in particular, the US, Germany, & Japan -- from 1945 to 2005. Crafts examines three major claims made by Brenner with regard to the experience of the US & Europe: (1) that the economic performance of advanced countries worsens over each business cycle as part of a long downturn in the growth of output, productivity, capital stock, & real wages; (2) that the rate of profit is the basic determinant of an economy's growth performance & thus that a turn-around in profitability is the cause of a downturn; & (3) that trends in productivity, driven by technological progress & successful catch-up growth, are not actually the primary drivers of the growth process. Crafts presents examples demonstrating that all three claims are flawed. While Brenner's pessimism may prove correct, it is not persuasive economic history. Tables. S. Stanton

Provides a digest of items on developments in the US Congress of relevance to Middle Eastern affairs: H. R. 5916, which bears on continued US financial support of Israel's qualitative military edge in the region, passage of another unrestricted war supplemental bill, bills seeking to shift some responsibility for Iraqi reconstruction funding, congressional pursuit of continued Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, & resolutions on Lebanon. Adapted from the source document.

For the past fifty years, U.S. Air Force reparable inventory has been allocated based on an analytic model developed by Dr. Craig C. Sherbrooke. Although versions of his model can be implemented easily with the help of a computer, the analytic approach fundamentally lacks the flexibility to address numerous logistics issues. This body of research will offer a novel alternative approach that will enable researchers to investigate currently unsolved logistics problems such as quantifying the benefits of lateral resupply.