Martinho, Vítor2023-11-272023-11-272023http://hdl.handle.net/10400.19/8056The discussions in the scientific literature about economic growth trends are vast and not unanimous. The economic theory has different opinions about economic growth that disagree, sometimes, if the economies tend to converge or diverge over time. In fact, the Neoclassical Theory argues that the economies tend to converge for the same steady state and the Keynesian Theory defends that the processes of economic growth promote divergence between countries/regions through increasing returns to scale. In the processes of divergence, the richer economies improve their performance and the poorer countries become worse. Taking into account these contexts, this research intends to test the existence of increasing returns to scale, using data for output and employment growth. For these analyses, the approaches related to the Verdoorn and Kaldor laws were considered. The results obtained highlight the existence of increasing returns to scale in some frameworks and reveal the importance of national and international policies implementation to promote a more balanced and sustainable development.engCircular and cumulative processesEconomic growthKeynesian theoryExternal demandbook part10.1007/978-3-031-38363-2_4