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Measuring Aggregate Productivity Growth Using Plant-Level Data

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Amil Petrin
James Levinsohn

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Abstract

We define productivity growth as the change in welfare that arises from additional output holding primary inputs constant. Using this traditional growth-accounting definition, we show that gains may arise because of plant-level technology shocks, and, in imperfectly competitive settings, from the reallocation of inputs across plants with differing markups and/or shadow values of primary inputs. With plant-level data, the alternative and most popular definition of productivity growth looks at the difference in the first moments of the productivity distribution. We show that this definition adds an additional term to the growth-accounting measure, which has been called %u201Creallocation.%u201D We show there is a very weak relationship between the two indexes in almost every 3-digit manufacturing industry in both Chile from 1987-1996 and Colombia from 1981-1991 - 49 in total - primarily because this %u201Creallocation%u201D term is large and volatile. We explore the theoretical reasons for this sharp divergence, in the process uncovering a number of previously unnoticed and unattractive features of the first-moment definition. For example, it is not tethered to any theoretical model, it is sensitive to measured units, and it can report positive productivity growth when welfare has fallen.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11887.

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Date of creation: Dec 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11887

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L0 - Industrial Organization - - General

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  9. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-97, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Trivedi, P K, 1981. "Some Discrete Approximations to Divisia Integral Indices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 22(1), pages 71-77, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Austan Goolsbee & Amil Petrin, 2004. "The Consumer Gains from Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Competition with Cable TV," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 351-381, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Stefano Federico & Gaetano Alfredo Minerva, 2008. "Outward FDI and Local Employment Growth in Italy," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 295-324, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Robert Breunig & Marn-Heong Wong, 2007. "A Richer Understanding of Australia’s Productivity Performance in the 1990s: Improved estimates based upon firm-level panel data," CEPR Discussion Papers 545, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
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