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The Tyranny of the Identity: Growth Accounting Revisited

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Author Info
Jesus Felipe
John McCombie

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Abstract

It has been argued in the literature that growth accounting may be undertaken by directly differentiating the national income and product accounts identity where total income equals labour’s total compensation and total profits. This paper shows that this is simply an exercise in the manipulation of an accounting identity without necessarily having any theoretical foundation. Simulations show that the estimates of total factor productivity growth resulting from growth accounting performed with aggregate monetary data are not equivalent to the true rate of technological progress implied by the micro-data. This suggests that results from the orthodox growth accounting approach may be very misleading.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal International Review of Applied Economics.

Volume (Year): 20 (2006)
Issue (Month): 3 (July)
Pages: 283-299
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Handle: RePEc:taf:irapec:v:20:y:2006:i:3:p:283-299

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Related research
Keywords: Total factor productivity growth; accounting identity; O47; O53;

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Notes on Growth Accounting," NBER Working Papers 6654, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Simon, Herbert A, 1979. " On Parsimonious Explanations of Production Relations," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 81(4), pages 459-74.
  3. Edward C. Prescott, 1997. "Needed: a theory of total factor productivity," Staff Report 242, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Fisher, Franklin M & Solow, Robert M & Kearl, James M, 1977. "Aggregate Production Functions: Some CES Experiments," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(2), pages 305-20, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Jesus Felipe & J. S. L. McCombie, 2005. "How Sound are the Foundations of the Aggregate Production Function?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 467-488, Summer. [Downloadable!]
  7. Jesus Felipe & J. S. L. McCombie, 2003. "Some methodological problems with the neoclassical analysis of the East Asian miracle," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(5), pages 695-721, September.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. James Bessen, 2008. "Accounting for Productivity Growth When Technical Change is Biased," Working Papers 0802, Research on Innovation. [Downloadable!]
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