This paper examines the aggregate productivity perfomance to a sample of 75 countries observed over the period 1961-1990. A translog stochastic frontier production function is fitted with inefficiency effects. The Malmquist index is applied and the rate of total productivity of factors growth can be explicitly decomposed into a measure of efficiency change and the rate of technological progress. Results are reported both in form of growth rates and measures of relative productivity levels. In each case related labor productivity measures and capital per worker ratio evolutions are analysed. Among the topics covered are the productivity slowdown, the low growth of Latin America and the bimodality of the distribution of relative productivity levels.
