Abstract
Kuznets swings refer to variations in economic growth with an average cyclical period of 20 years. The evidence suggests that for the period before the First World War long swings were a dominant and pervasive aspect of national economic growth. Abramovitz (1968) argued that Kuznets swings were a feature only of the pre-1913 era, partly because the migration restrictions introduced in the New World during the interwar period changed the causal process. We consider this idea and argue that, although the features of long swings are time-varying, the idea of a ‘passing of the Kuznets cycle’ needs to be re-evaluated.
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Solomou, S.N. (2018). Kuznets Swings. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1169
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1169
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