IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i5p322-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Declining Dynamism, Allocative Efficiency, and the Productivity Slowdown

Author

Listed:
  • Ryan A. Decker
  • John Haltiwanger
  • Ron S. Jarmin
  • Javier Miranda

Abstract

A large literature documents declining measures of business dynamism including high-growth young firm activity and job reallocation. A distinct literature describes a slowdown in the pace of aggregate labor productivity growth. We relate these patterns by studying changes in productivity growth from the late 1990s to the mid 2000s using firm-level data. We find that diminished allocative efficiency gains can account for the productivity slowdown in a manner that interacts with the within-firm productivity growth distribution. The evidence suggests that the decline in dynamism is reason for concern and sheds light on debates about the causes of slowing productivity growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan A. Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2017. "Declining Dynamism, Allocative Efficiency, and the Productivity Slowdown," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 322-326, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:322-26
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.p20171020
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=MXaZosYlUJyaRZThA1Gy_c1RcIb6zVkT
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=XoiTa9Om21lUdCVahpXndZ0kfP_vgs-h
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Byrne & John G. Fernald & Marshall B. Reinsdorf, 2016. "Does the United States Have a Productivity Slowdown or a Measurement Problem?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 109-182.
    2. Marc J. Melitz & Sašo Polanec, 2015. "Dynamic Olley-Pakes productivity decomposition with entry and exit," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 362-375, June.
    3. Ryan A. Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2018. "Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity : Shocks vs. Responsiveness," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-007, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Chad Syverson, 2017. "Challenges to Mismeasurement Explanations for the US Productivity Slowdown," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 165-186, Spring.
    5. John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Robert Kulick & Javier Miranda, 2016. "High Growth Young Firms: Contribution to Job, Output, and Productivity Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges, pages 11-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Alon, Titan & Berger, David & Dent, Robert & Pugsley, Benjamin, 2018. "Older and slower: The startup deficit’s lasting effects on aggregate productivity growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 68-85.
    7. Dan Andrews & Chiara Criscuolo & Peter N. Gal, 2015. "Frontier Firms, Technology Diffusion and Public Policy: Micro Evidence from OECD Countries," OECD Productivity Working Papers 2, OECD Publishing.
    8. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    9. Robert J. Gordon, 2016. "Perspectives on The Rise and Fall of American Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 72-76, May.
    10. Decker, Ryan A. & Haltiwanger, John & Jarmin, Ron S. & Miranda, Javier, 2016. "Where has all the skewness gone? The decline in high-growth (young) firms in the U.S," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 4-23.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander Murray, 2017. "What Explains the Post-2004 U.S.Productivity Slowdown?," CSLS Research Reports 2017-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    2. Lucia Foster & Cheryl Grim & John C. Haltiwanger & Zoltan Wolf, 2019. "Innovation, Productivity Dispersion, and Productivity Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century, pages 103-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ryan A. Decker & John C. Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2018. "Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity: Shocks vs. Responsiveness," NBER Working Papers 24236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. J. David Brown & Gustavo A. Crespi & Leonardo Iacovone & Luca Marcolin, 2018. "Decomposing firm-level productivity growth and assessing its determinants: evidence from the Americas," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(6), pages 1571-1606, December.
    5. Michael Peneder & Catherine Prettner, 2021. "Entwicklung der Produktivität österreichischer Unternehmen von 2008 bis 2018. Auswertung von Mikrodaten für Österreich im Rahmen von Multiprod 2.0," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 67450.
    6. Nakamura, Koji & Kaihatsu, Sohei & Yagi, Tomoyuki, 2019. "Productivity improvement and economic growth: lessons from Japan," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 57-79.
    7. Marie Le Mouel & Alexander Schiersch, 2020. "Knowledge-Based Capital and Productivity Divergence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1868, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Alon, Titan & Berger, David & Dent, Robert & Pugsley, Benjamin, 2018. "Older and slower: The startup deficit’s lasting effects on aggregate productivity growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 68-85.
    9. John G. Fernald & Robert E. Hall & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2017. "The Disappointing Recovery of Output after 2009," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 1-81.
    10. Peter Bauer & Igor Fedotenkov & Aurelien Genty & Issam Hallak & Peter Harasztosi & David Martinez Turegano & David Nguyen & Nadir Preziosi & Ana Rincon-Aznar & Miguel Sanchez Martinez, 2020. "Productivity in Europe: Trends and drivers in a service-based economy," JRC Working Papers JRC119785, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    11. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2020. "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms [“Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 135(2), pages 645-709.
    12. Bruhn, Simon & Grebel, Thomas & Nesta, Lionel, 2021. "The fallacy in productivity decomposition," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 160, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    13. David Byrne & Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2017. "Prices of high-tech products, mismeasurement, and the pace of innovation," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 52(2), pages 103-113, April.
    14. Lin Zhou & Jianglong Li & Yangqing Dan & Chunping Xie & Houyin Long & Hongxun Liu, 2019. "Entering and Exiting: Productivity Evolution of Energy Supply in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, February.
    15. Giacomo Domini & Daniele Moschella, 2018. "Reallocation and productivity during the Great Recession:evidence from French manufacturing firms," LEM Papers Series 2018/11, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    16. Shyngys Karimov & Jozef Konings, 2021. "The start-up gap and jobs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 2067-2084, December.
    17. Schneider, Patrick, 2018. "Decomposing differences in productivity distributions," Bank of England working papers 740, Bank of England.
    18. Uwe Cantner & Holger Graf & Ekaterina Prytkova & Simone Vannuccini, 2018. "The Compositional Nature of Productivity and Innovation Slowdown," Jena Economic Research Papers 2018-006, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    19. Elstner, Steffen & Rujin, Svetlana, 2019. "The consequences of U.S. technology changes for productivity in advanced economies," Ruhr Economic Papers 796, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    20. Kritikos, Alexander S. & Schiersch, Alexander & Stiel, Caroline, 2021. "The Productivity Puzzle in Business Services," IZA Discussion Papers 14610, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:322-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.