This article seeks to improve understanding of cross-country patterns of ec
onomic growth. It adopts a stochastic production-frontier model that allows
for the decomposition of output change into input, efficiency, and technic
al change. The production frontier is assumed to depend on effective inputs
rather than measured inputs. We develop a model in which effective inputs
depend on observed factor use and a correction term that depends on variabl
es such as education. A further extension over related work is our use of a
production frontier that varies over regional country groups. Empirical re
sults indicate that both these extensions are very important.