Advanced Search

Explaining the gaps in labour productivity in some developed countries

Contents:

Author Info

  • Weshah Razzak

    (Department of Labour - New Zealand)

Abstract

Modern economic theories explain differences in productivity and economic growth by differences in political and economic institutions, and differences in culture, geographical location, policies, and laws. Another new strand of the literature explains productivity and economic growth differentials by gaps in general purpose technology and information and communication technology, while another literature cites real exchange rate depreciations as the main explanatory variable. These gaps might explain differences in economic performances between developed and developing countries, but they are too small to explain differences between developed industrial economies such as New Zealand and Australia or Canada and the United States. In this paper, more than eighty percent of labour productivity gaps between New Zealand and Australia and Canada and the United States are explained by endogenous technology shocks (TFP) and capital intensities.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://repec.org/mmf2006/up.18034.1143489929.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Money Macro and Finance Research Group in its series Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 with number 30.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 02 Feb 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:mmf:mmfc06:30

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.essex.ac.uk/afm/mmf/index.html

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

Related research

Keywords: Productivity; nontradable prices; real exchange rate;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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. Francisco Rodríguez, 2006. "Openness and Growth: What Have We Learned?," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2006-011, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
  2. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?," NBER Working Papers 6564, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2005. "Endogenous TFP and Cross-Country Income Differences," Working Papers 247, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2005.
  4. Menzie David Chinn & Louis Dorrance Johnston, 1997. "Real Exchange Rate Levels, Productivity and Demand Shocks: Evidence from a Panel of 14 Countries," IMF Working Papers 97/66, International Monetary Fund.
  5. Aghion, P. & Howitt, P., 1990. "A Model Of Growth Through Creative Destruction," DELTA Working Papers 90-12, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  6. Lee, Jaymin, 1996. "Technology imports and R&D efforts of Korean manufacturing firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 197-210, June.
  7. Hsieh, David A., 1982. "The determination of the real exchange rate : The productivity approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3-4), pages 355-362, May.
  8. Guido Tabellini, 2005. "Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 1492, CESifo Group Munich.
  9. Peter C. Rangazas, 2005. "Human Capital and Growth: An Alternative Accounting," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 0(1), pages 20.
  10. Ken Miyajima, 2005. "Real Exchange Rates in Growing Economies: How Strong Is the Role of the Nontradables Sector?," IMF Working Papers 05/233, International Monetary Fund.
  11. Man-Keung Tang & Jaewoo Lee, 2003. "Does Productivity Growth Lead to Appreciation of the Real Exchange Rate?," IMF Working Papers 03/154, International Monetary Fund.
  12. De Long, J Bradford & Summers, Lawrence H, 1991. "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 106(2), pages 445-502, May.
  13. repec:rus:hseeco:70719 is not listed on IDEAS
  14. Nelson, Richard R. & Sampat, Bhaven N., 2001. "Making sense of institutions as a factor shaping economic performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 31-54, January.
  15. Rafael LaPorta & Florencio Lopez de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1788, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  16. Troy Matheson & Les Oxley, 2007. "Convergence in Productivity Across Industries: Some Results for New Zealand and Australia," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 55-73.
  17. Helpman, E. & Trajtenberg, M., 1996. "Diffusion of General Purpose Technologies," Papers 24-96, Tel Aviv - the Sackler Institute of Economic Studies.
  18. K Peren Arin & Faik Koray, 2005. "Fiscal Policy and Economic Activity: U.S. Evidence," Macroeconomics 0508024, EconWPA.
  19. Jose De Gregorio & Holger C. Wolf, 1994. "Terms of Trade, Productivity, and the Real Exchange Rate," Working Papers 94-19, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
  20. Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "Prosperity and Depression: 2002 Richard T. Ely Lecture," Working Papers 618, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  21. Jeffrey A. Frankel & David Romer, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
  22. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A, 2004. "Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 4458, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  23. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
  24. Mankiw, N Gregory & Romer, David & Weil, David N, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-37, May.
  25. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
  26. Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti & S. Micossi, 1994. "Real Exchange Rates and the Prices of Nontradable Goods," IMF Working Papers 94/19, International Monetary Fund.
  27. Prescott, Edward C, 1998. "Needed: A Theory of Total Factor Productivity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 525-51, August.
  28. Edwards, Sebastian, 1998. "Openness, Productivity and Growth: What Do We Really Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 383-98, March.
  29. Peter Klenow & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 1997. "The Neoclassical Revival in Growth Economics: Has It Gone Too Far?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 73-114 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  30. Francisco Rodriguez & Dani Rodrik, 1999. "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to Cross-National Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7081, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  31. Robert J. Barro & Rachel McCleary, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 9682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  32. Greif, Avner, 1994. "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 912-50, October.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
  1. Razzak, Weshah, 2008. "On The dynamic of search, matching and productivity in New Zealand and Australia," MPRA Paper 8262, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  2. Laabas, Belkacem & Weshah, Razzak, 2011. "Economic Growth and The Quality of Human Capital," MPRA Paper 28727, University Library of Munich, Germany.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mmf:mmfc06:30

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.