The euro area has experienced a sustained decline in labour productivity growth sincethe 1980s. In the economic literature this phenomenon is commonly explained by adecline in capital deepening and lower total factor productivity (TFP) growth. However,the decline in labour productivity growth might partly also reflect a lower contributionof labour quality growth. We present evidence of changes in human capital in a numberof euro area countries based on a fixed-weight index for labour quality growth for boththe employed population and the labour force. We then evaluate the significance ofthese changes for recent developments in productivity growth. Our findings suggest thateuro area labour quality has indeed moderated towards the end of the 1990’s, but theimpact on labour productivity growth is small compared to the overall decline in capitaldeepening and total factor productivity growth.
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Paper provided by Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich in its series Ifo Working Paper Series with number
Ifo Working Paper No. 53.
Find related papers by JEL classification: E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity O47 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
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.:
David Card & Richard B. Freeman, 2004.
"What Have Two Decades of British Economic Reform Delivered?,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980-2000, pages 9-62
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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