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Tracking the new economy: using growth theory to detect changes in trend productivity

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James A. Kahn
Robert Rich

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Abstract

The acceleration of productivity since 1995 has prompted a debate over whether the economy's underlying growth rate will remain high. In this paper, we propose a methodology for estimating trend growth that draws on growth theory to identify variables other than productivity namely consumption and labor compensation to help estimate trend productivity growth. We treat that trend as a common factor with two "regimes," high-growth and low-growth. Our analysis picks up striking evidence of a switch in the mid-1990s to a higher long-term growth regime, as well as a switch in the early 1970s in the other direction. In addition, we find that productivity data alone provide insufficient evidence of regime changes; corroborating evidence from other data is crucial in identifying changes in trend growth. We also argue that our methodology would be effective in detecting changes in trend in real time: In the case of the 1990s, the methodology would have detected the regime switch within two years of its actual occurrence according to subsequent data.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of New York in its series Staff Reports with number 159.

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Date of creation: 2003
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:159

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Keywords: Economic development ; Consumption (Economics) ; Wages ; Time-series analysis;

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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. Chang-Jin Kim & Christian J. Murray, 2002. "Permanent and transitory components of recessions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 163-183. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Robert G. King & Charles I. Plosser & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1991. "Stochastic trends and economic fluctuations," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 91-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
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  4. Robert J. Hodrick & Edward Prescott, 1981. "Post-War U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Discussion Papers 451, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Campbell, John Y & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1987. "Are Output Fluctuations Transitory?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 857-80, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-84, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Casey B. Mulligan, 2002. "A Century of Labor-Leisure Distortions," NBER Working Papers 8774, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Kevin J. Stiroh, 2002. "Information Technology and the U.S. Productivity Revival: What Do the Industry Data Say?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1559-1576, December. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 1997. "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Technological Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 342-62, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R, 1999. "Friedman's Plucking Model of Business Fluctuations: Tests and Estimates of Permanent and Transitory Components," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 317-34, August.
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  13. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2002. "Business cycle accounting," Working Papers 625, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
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  14. Carol Corrado & Lawrence Slifman, 1999. "Decomposition of Productivity and Unit Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 328-332, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1981. "What Is Left of the Multiplier Accelerator?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 150-54, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-80, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  18. Bruce E. Hansen, 2001. "The New Econometrics of Structural Change: Dating Breaks in U.S. Labour Productivity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 117-128, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Matthew D. Shapiro & Mark W. Watson, 1988. "Sources of Business Cycle Fluctuations," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 870, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  20. Bai, Jushan & Lumsdaine, Robin L & Stock, James H, 1998. "Testing for and Dating Common Breaks in Multivariate Time Series," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 65(3), pages 395-432, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(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. Naohisa Hirakata & Nao Sudo, 2009. "Accounting for Oil Price Variation and Weakening Impact of the Oil Crisis," IMES Discussion Paper Series 09-E-01, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan. [Downloadable!]
  2. Svensson, Lars E.O. & Williams, Noah, 2005. "Monetary policy with model uncertainty: distribution forecast targeting," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,35, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Arabinda Basistha, 2009. "Hours per capita and productivity: evidence from correlated unobserved components models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 187-206. [Downloadable!]
  4. Peter Ireland & Scott Schuh, 2008. "Productivity and U.S. Macroeconomic Performance: Interpreting the Past and Predicting the Future with a Two-Sector Real Business Cycle Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 473-492, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Juan F. Jimeno & Esther Moral & Lorena Saiz, 2006. "Structural breaks in labor productivity growth: the United States vs. the European Union," Banco de España Working Papers 0625, Banco de España. [Downloadable!]
  6. Rochelle M. Edge & Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2004. "Learning and shifts in long-run productivity growth," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2004-04, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
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  7. John G. Fernald, 2005. "Trend breaks, long-run restrictions, and the contractionary effects of technology improvements," Working Paper Series 2005-21, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2007. "Unmeasured Investment and the Puzzling U.S. Boom in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 13499, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Peter N. Ireland, 2007. "On the Welfare Cost of Inflation and the Recent Behavior of Money Demand," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 662, Boston College Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Mark W. French, 2005. "A nonlinear look at trend MFP growth and the business cycle: result from a hybrid Kalman/Markov switching model," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-12, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  11. Rochelle Edge & Thomas Laubach, 2004. "Learning and Shifts in Long-Run Growth," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 123, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Miguel A. Ferreira & Jose A. Lopez, 2004. "Evaluating interest rate covariance models within a value-at-risk framework," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2004-03, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
  13. James A. Kahn, 2008. "What drives housing prices?," Staff Reports 345, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
  14. James B. Bullard & John Duffy, 2004. "Learning and structural change in macroeconomic data," Working Papers 2004-016, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  15. Michael Graff, 2004. "Estimates of the output gap in real time: how well have we been doing?," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP 2004/04, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. [Downloadable!]
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