Why did productivity fall so much during the Great Depression?
This study assesses five common explanations for the large decline in U.S. total factor productivity (TFP) during the Great Depression: changes in capacity utilization, factor input quality, and production composition; labor hoarding; and increasing returns to scale. The study finds that these factors explain less than one-third of the 18 percent TFP decline between 1929 and 1933. The rest of the decline remains unexplained. The study offers a potential explanation: declines in organization capital, the knowledge firms use to organize production, caused by breakdowns in relationships between firms and their suppliers, for example. As some firms failed during the Depression, efficiency in surviving firms decreased; managers had to shift time away from production in order to establish new relationships, and firms had to shift to unfamiliar technologies that initially were operated inefficiently. This article originally appeared in the American Economic Review. (c) 2001 by the American Economic Association.
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Volume (Year): (2002)
Issue (Month): Spr ()
Pages:
| Handle: | RePEc:fip:fedmqr:y:2002:i:spr:n:v.26no.2 |
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References listed on IDEAS
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- Ben S. Bernanke & Martin L. Parkinson, 1990.
"Procyclical Labor Productivity and Competing Theories of the Business Cycle: Some Evidence from Interwar U.S. Manufacturing Industries,"
NBER Working Papers
3503, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Bernanke, Ben S & Parkinson, Martin L, 1991. "Procyclical Labor Productivity and Competing Theories of the Business Cycle: Some Evidence from Interwar U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 439-59, June.
- Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, 2001.
"Re-Examining the Contributions of Money and Banking Shocks to the U.S. Great Depression,"
NBER Chapters,
in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 183-260
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, 2000. "Re-examining the contributions of money and banking shocks to the U.S. Great Depression," Staff Report 270, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
- Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005.
"Modeling and Measuring Organization Capital,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1026-1053, October.
- Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005. "Modeling and measuring organization capital," Staff Report 291, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
- Prescott, Edward C & Visscher, Michael, 1980. "Organization Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 446-61, June.
- Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Some skeptical observations on real business cycle theory," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 23-27.
- Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Industry evolution and transition: the role of information capital," Staff Report 162, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
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