IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jecgro/v11y2006i3p263-288.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scale effects in endogenous growth theory: an error of aggregation not specification

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Laincz
  • Pietro Peretto

Abstract

Modern Schumpeterian growth theory focuses on the product line as the main locus of innovation and exploits endogenous product proliferation to sterilize the scale effect. The empirical core of this theory consists of two claims: (i) growth depends on average employment (i.e., employment per product line); (ii) average employment is scale invariant. We show that data on employment, R&D personnel, and the number of establishments in the US for the period 1964–2001 provide strong support for these claims. While employment and the total number of R&D workers increase with no apparent matching change in the long-run trend of productivity growth, employment and R&D employment per establishment exhibit no long-run trend. We also document that the number of establishments, employment and population exhibit a positive trend, while the ratio employment/establishment does not. Finally, we provide results of time series tests consistent with the predictions of these models. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Laincz & Pietro Peretto, 2006. "Scale effects in endogenous growth theory: an error of aggregation not specification," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 263-288, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jecgro:v:11:y:2006:i:3:p:263-288
    DOI: 10.1007/s10887-006-9004-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10887-006-9004-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    3. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    4. Charles I. Jones, 1995. "Time Series Tests of Endogenous Growth Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(2), pages 495-525.
    5. Geweke, John & Meese, Richard, 1981. "Estimating regression models of finite but unknown order," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 162-162, May.
    6. Backus, David K. & Kehoe, Patrick J. & Kehoe, Timothy J., 1992. "In search of scale effects in trade and growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 377-409, December.
    7. Feenstra, Robert C, 1994. "New Product Varieties and the Measurement of International Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 157-177, March.
    8. Marios Zachariadis, 2003. "R&D, innovation, and technological progress: a test of the Schumpeterian framework without scale effects," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 36(3), pages 566-586, August.
    9. Peretto, Pietro F, 1998. "Technological Change and Population Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 283-311, December.
    10. Galor, Oded, 2005. "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of Economic Growth,in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 171-293 Elsevier.
    11. Tor Jakob Klette & Samuel Kortum, 2004. "Innovating Firms and Aggregate Innovation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 986-1018, October.
    12. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    13. Michael E. Porter & Scott Stern, 2000. "Measuring the "Ideas" Production Function: Evidence from International Patent Output," NBER Working Papers 7891, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Smulders, Sjak & van de Klundert, Theo, 1995. "Imperfect competition, concentration and growth with firm-specific R & D," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 139-160, January.
    15. Kocherlakota, Narayana R & Yi, Kei-Mu, 1997. "Is There Endogenous Long-Run Growth? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(2), pages 235-262, May.
    16. Ben-David, Dan & Papell, David H., 1995. "The great wars, the great crash, and steady state growth: Some new evidence about an old stylized fact," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 453-475, December.
    17. Patrizio Pagano & Fabiano Schivardi, 2003. "Firm Size Distribution and Growth," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(2), pages 255-274, June.
    18. Pietro Peretto & Sjak Smulders, 2002. "Technological Distance, Growth And Scale Effects," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 603-624, July.
    19. Alwyn Young, 1998. "Growth without Scale Effects," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 41-63, February.
    20. Timothy Dunne & Mark J. Roberts & Larry Samuelson, 1988. "Patterns of Firm Entry and Exit in U.S. Manufacturing Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(4), pages 495-515, Winter.
    21. Christopher A. Laincz, 2002. "Market Structure and Endogenous Productivity Growth," Computing in Economics and Finance 2002 112, Society for Computational Economics.
    22. Peretto, Pietro F, 1996. "Sunk Costs, Market Structure, and Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(4), pages 895-923, November.
    23. Segerstrom, Paul S, 1998. "Endogenous Growth without Scale Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1290-1310, December.
    24. Philippe Aghion & Christopher Harris & Peter Howitt & John Vickers, 2001. "Competition, Imitation and Growth with Step-by-Step Innovation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(3), pages 467-492.
    25. Peretto, Pietro F., 1999. "Cost reduction, entry, and the interdependence of market structure and economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 173-195, February.
    26. Elias Dinopoulos & Peter Thompson, 1999. "Scale effects in Schumpeterian models of economic growth," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 157-185.
    27. Samuel S. Kortum, 1997. "Research, Patenting, and Technological Change," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(6), pages 1389-1420, November.
    28. Michael Kremer, 1993. "Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 681-716.
    29. Peter Howitt, 1999. "Steady Endogenous Growth with Population and R & D Inputs Growing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 715-730, August.
    30. Dinopoulos, Elias & Thompson, Peter, 1998. "Schumpeterian Growth without Scale Effects," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 313-335, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endogenous growth; R&D; Scale effects; Firm size; Establishments; E10; L16; O31; O40;

    JEL classification:

    • E10 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - General
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:kap:jecgro:v:11:y:2006:i:3:p:263-288. 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: (Sonal Shukla) or (Rebekah McClure). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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 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.

    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.