Economic Growth Dividends from Global Book Production: Recent Evidence Around the Pandemic

This paper uses recent global data on book production to study their impacts on economic growth. Books are key inputs in human capital formation and knowledge flows/continuity, which impact economic growth. Our results, using data from nearly 100 nations over 2018–2021, show that books positively contribute to economic growth. This is true whether total books deposited in recognized repositories are used or when they are normalized by population. E-books are also shown to complement the effects of conventional books. The positive growth dividends over a period that encompasses the recent pandemic are insightful. In other results, internet access (and the degree of globalization) has complementary growth effects. Finally, the effects of some of the growth influences are shown to vary across the least- and most-growing nations.