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Productivity Growth in the 1990s: Technology, Utilization, or Adjustment?

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Author Info
Susanto Basu
John G. Fernald
Matthew D. Shapiro

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Abstract

Measured productivity growth increased substantially during the second half of the 1990s. This paper examines whether this increase owes to an increase in the rate of technological change or whether it can be explained by non-technological factors relating to factor utilization, factor accumulation, or returns to scale. It finds that the recent increase in productivity growth does appear to arise from an increase in technological change. Cyclical utilization raised measured productivity growth relative to technology growth in the first part of the expansion, but lowered it subsequently. Factor adjustment leads to a steady-state understatement of technology growth by measured productivity growth. The understatement was greater in the second half of the expansion than the first. Changes in the distribution of inputs across industries with different returns to scale lead to a modest understatement in the growth in technology. Although the increase technological change is most pronounced in durable manufacturing, technological change also increased outside of manufacturing.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 8359.

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Date of creation: Jul 2001
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8359

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O47 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production

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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. Shapiro, Matthew D, 1993. "Cyclical Productivity and the Workweek of Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 229-33, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "The Stock Market and Capital Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1185-1202, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Shapiro, Matthew D, 1986. "The Dynamic Demand for Capital and Labor," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 513-42, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Michael T. Kiley, 1999. "Computers and growth with costs of adjustment: will the future look like the past?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-36, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  5. Matthew D. Shapiro, 1987. "Capital Utilization and Capital Accumulation: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 1900, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Matthew D. Shapiro, 1996. "Macroeconomic Implications of Variation in the Workweek of Capital," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1996-2), pages 79-134. [Downloadable!]
  7. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1998. "Monetary Policy Shocks: What Have We Learned and to What End?," NBER Working Papers 6400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Susanto Basu & John Fernald & Miles Kimball, 2004. "Are Technology Improvements Contractionary?," NBER Working Papers 10592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Dennis W. Carlton, 1983. "Equilibrium Fluctuations When Price and Delivery Lag Clear the Market," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 562-572, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-17, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Martin Neil Baily & Robert Z. Lawrence, 2001. "Do We Have a New E-conomy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 308-312, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Ramey, Valerie A. & Shapiro, Matthew D., 1998. "Costly capital reallocation and the effects of government spending," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 145-194, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. William D. Nordhaus, 2000. "Productivity Growth and the New Economy," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1284, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "Struggling to Understand the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 1-11, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Karl Whelan, 2000. "A guide to the use of chain aggregated NIPA data," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-35, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  16. Basu, Susanto, 1996. "Procyclical Productivity: Increasing Returns or Cyclical Utilization?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(3), pages 719-51, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald, 1997. "Aggregate productivity and aggregate technology," International Finance Discussion Papers 593, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  18. Gordon, Robert J, 2000. "Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2607, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. John G. Fernald & Susanto Basu, 1999. "Why is productivity procyclical? Why do we care?," International Finance Discussion Papers 638, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  20. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1993. "Dynamic General Equilibrium Models with Imperfectly Competitive Product Markets," NBER Working Papers 4502, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Karl Whelan, 2000. "Computers, obsolescence, and productivity," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-06, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  22. Dale W. Jorgenson & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2000. "Raising the Speed Limit: US Economic Growth in the Information Age," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 261, OECD, Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
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  23. 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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  24. Burnside, C & Eichenbaum, M & Rebelo, S, 1995. "Capital Utilization and Returns to Scale," RCER Working Papers 402, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
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  25. Andrew B. Abel, 2002. "The effects of a baby boom on stock prices and capital accumulation in the presence of Social Security," Working Papers 03-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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  26. Susanto Basu & Miles S. Kimball, 1997. "Cyclical Productivity with Unobserved Input Variation," NBER Working Papers 5915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles, 1996. "The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks: Evidence from the Flow of Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 16-34, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  28. Martin N. Baily & Robert Lawrence, 2001. "Do We Have A New E-Conomy?," NBER Working Papers 8243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(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. Martin Neil Baily & Robert Z. Lawrence, 2001. "Do We Have a New E-conomy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 308-312, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Daniel Aaronson & Daniel Sullivan, 2001. "Growth in worker quality," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q IV, pages 53-74. [Downloadable!]
  3. Charles L. Evans & David Marshall, 2001. "Economic determinants of the nominal treasury yield curve," Working Paper Series WP-01-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald, 2009. "What do we know (and not know) about potential output?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jul, pages 187-214. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Sang-Yong Tom Lee & Xiao Jia Guo, 2004. "Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Spillover: A Panel Analysis," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 722, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  6. Ariel Coremberg, 2008. "The Measurement of TFP in Argentina, 1990-2004: A Case of the Tyranny of Numbers, Economic Cycles and Methodology," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 17, pages 52-74, Fall. [Downloadable!]
  7. Maury, P-M. & Pluyaud, B., 2004. "The Breaks in per Capita Productivity Trends in a Number of Industrial Countries," Documents de Travail 111, Banque de France. [Downloadable!]
  8. Stephanie Aaronson & Andrew Figura, 2005. "How biased are measures of cyclical movements in productivity and hours?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-38, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  9. Robert S. Chirinko & Debdulal Mallick, 2008. "The Marginal Product of Capital: A Persistent International Puzzle," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  10. Charles L. Evans & David A. Marshall, 2005. "Fundamental Economic Shocks and The Macroeconomy," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 351, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
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