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Prices of High-Tech Products, Mismeasurement, and Pace of Innovation

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  • David Byrne
  • Stephen Oliner
  • Daniel Sichel

Abstract

Two recent papers have made compelling cases that mismeasurement of prices of high tech products cannot explain the slow pace of labor productivity growth that has prevailed since the mid-2000s. Does that result indicate that mismeasurement of high-tech products has limited implications for patterns of economic growth? The answer in this paper is “no.” We demonstrate that the understatement of price declines for high-tech products in official measures has a dramatic effect on the pattern of MFP growth across sectors. In particular, we show that correcting this mismeasurement implies faster MFP growth in high-tech sectors and slower MFP advance outside the high-tech sector. If MFP growth is taken as a rough proxy for the pace of innovation, our results suggest that innovation in the tech sector has been more rapid than the rate that would be inferred from official statistics (and less rapid outside high-tech). These results deepen the productivity puzzle. If the pace of innovation in high-tech sectors has been more rapid than indicated by official statistics, then it is perhaps even more puzzling that overall labor productivity growth has been so sluggish in recent years.

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  • David Byrne & Stephen Oliner & Daniel Sichel, 2017. "Prices of High-Tech Products, Mismeasurement, and Pace of Innovation," NBER Working Papers 23369, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23369
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    Cited by:

    1. Ana M. Aizcorbe & David M. Byrne & Daniel E. Sichel, 2019. "Getting Smart About Phones : New Price Indexes and the Allocation of Spending Between Devices and Services Plans in Personal Consumption Expenditures," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-012, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. John Fernald, 2018. "Is Slow Productivity and Output Growth in Advanced Economies the New Normal?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 35, pages 138-148, Fall.
    3. Jaana Remes, Jan Mischke and Mekala Krishnan, 2018. "Solving the Productivity Puzzle: The Role of Demand and the Promise of Digitization," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 34, pages 28-51, Fall.
    4. Muhammad Nouman & Mohammad Sohail Yunis & Muhammad Atiq & Owais Mufti & Abdul Qadus, 2022. "‘The Forgotten Sector’: An Integrative Framework for Future Research on Low- and Medium-Technology Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, March.
    5. Uwe Cantner & Holger Graf & Ekaterina Prytkova & Simone Vannuccini, 2018. "The Compositional Nature of Productivity and Innovation Slowdown," Jena Economics Research Papers 2018-006, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    6. Wim Naudé & Paula Nagler, 2018. "Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Productivity in Germany, 1871-2015," SPRU Working Paper Series 2018-02, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    7. Rebecca Riley & Ana Rincon-Aznar & Lea Samek, 2018. "Below the Aggregate: A Sectoral Account of the UK Productivity Puzzle," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2018-06, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    8. Stanley Fischer, 2017. "Government Policy and Labor Productivity : a speech at the \"Washington Transformation? Politics, Policies, Prospects,\" a forum sponsored by the Summer Institute of Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew," Speech 962, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Richard Schmalensee, 2018. "Puzzles and Surprises in Employment and Productivity in U.S. Manufacturing After the Great Recession," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 35, pages 5-27, Fall.
    10. Lewis Alexander & Janice Eberly, 2018. "Investment Hollowing Out," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 66(1), pages 5-30, March.
    11. Jan Eeckhout & Christoph Hedtrich & Roberto Pinheiro, 2019. "Automation, Spatial Sorting, and Job Polarization," 2019 Meeting Papers 581, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Biolsi, Christopher, 2021. "Labor productivity forecasts based on a Beveridge–Nelson filter: Is there statistical evidence for a slowdown?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • L63 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Microelectronics; Computers; Communications Equipment
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

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