Recent empirical work using structural VARs with long-run restrictions assesses whether hours worked per capita rises or falls following a technology improvement. This literature reaches divergent conclusions on the sign of this effect, depending on whether hours worked enters the VAR in log-levels or growth rates. In contrast, I find that once one allows for (statistically and economically plausible) trend breaks in labor productivity, it is unimportant whether hours enters the VAR in levels or growth rates: Hours worked falls by a statistically significant amount on impact following a technology improvement. These findings apply in both bivariate and larger VAR systems. Results are also robust to reasonable variation in dating the trend breaks. In the full sample, however, one must take out two breaks to get the contractionary effects of technology improvements, at least if hours enters in levels. Finally, but importantly, I discuss conjectures on what, statistically and economically, drives the sensitivity to trend breaks. I argue that the sensitivity is economically interesting and informative
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Paper provided by Society for Economic Dynamics in its series 2004 Meeting Papers with number
477.
Length: Date of creation: 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:red:sed004:477
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles O47 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
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Fabio Canova & David Lopez-Salido & Claudio Michelacci, 2006.
"Schumpeterian Technology Shocks,"
Economics Working Papers
1012, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2007.
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