IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sls/ipmsls/v1y20007.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour or Total Factor Productivity: Do We Need to Choose?

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy C. Sargent
  • Edgard R. Rodriguez

Abstract

. In this article, as part of the symposium on total factor productivity, Timothy C. Sargent and Edgard R. Rodriquez of Finance Canada discuss the issue of the choice between labour and total factor productivity. They conclude that both measures have uses. For periods of less than a decade, labour productivity is the preferred measure, but for longer periods total factor productivity is superior. When capital stock estimates are of poor quality, it is better to use labour productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy C. Sargent & Edgard R. Rodriguez, 2000. "Labour or Total Factor Productivity: Do We Need to Choose?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 1, pages 41-44, Fall.
  • Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:1:y:2000:7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/1/sargent-e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/1/sargent-f.pdf
    File Function: version en francais, pp:41-44
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. D. W. Jorgenson & Z. Griliches, 1967. "The Explanation of Productivity Change," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 249-283.
    2. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 1997. "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Technological Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 342-362, June.
    3. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Romer, Paul M, 1987. "Growth Based on Increasing Returns Due to Specialization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 56-62, May.
    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. 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.
    2. Richard Lipsey & Kenneth Carlaw, 2004. "Total factor productivity and the measurement of technological change," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1118-1150, November.
    3. Kenneth I. Carlaw & Richard G. Lipsey, 2003. "Productivity, Technology and Economic Growth: What is the Relationship?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 457-495, July.
    4. Athanasoglou, Panayiotis P. & Georgiou, Evangelia A. & Staikouras, Christos C., 2009. "Assessing output and productivity growth in the banking industry," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 1317-1340, November.
    5. Rongrong Xu & Yongxiang Wu & Ming Chen & Xuan Zhang & Wei Wu & Long Tan & Gaoxu Wang & Yi Xu & Bing Yan & Yuedong Xia, 2019. "Calculation of the contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology based on a feedforward neural network," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-22, September.
    6. Hallegatte, Stéphane & Dumas, Patrice, 2009. "Can natural disasters have positive consequences? Investigating the role of embodied technical change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 777-786, January.
    7. Dale W. Jorgenson & Mun S. Ho & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2005. "Growth of US Industries and Investments in Information Technology and Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Capital in the New Economy, pages 403-478, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Marquis, Milton H. & Trehan, Bharat, 2008. "On using relative prices to measure capital-specific technological progress," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1390-1406, December.
    9. Raouf Boucekkine & David de la Croix & Yiannis Vailakis, 2002. "Technological Shocks and IT Revolutions," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 68(1), pages 75-89.
    10. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Plutarchos Sakellaris & Daniel J. Wilson, 2004. "Quantifying Embodied Technological Change," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-26, January.
    12. Bibhudutta Panda, 2017. "Schooling and productivity growth: evidence from a dual growth accounting application to U.S. states," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 193-221, December.
    13. Nelson H. Barbosa Filho, 2005. "Estimating Potential Output : a Survey of the Alternative Methods and their Applications to Brazil," Discussion Papers 1092, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
    14. Sakellaris, Plutarchos & Vijselaar, Focco, 2004. "Capital quality improvement and the sources of growth in the euro area," Working Paper Series 368, European Central Bank.
    15. Almas Heshmati, 2003. "Productivity Growth, Efficiency and Outsourcing in Manufacturing and Service Industries," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 79-112, February.
    16. Johanna Melka & Nanno Mulder & Laurence Nayman & Soledad Zignago, 2003. "Skills, Technology and Growth is ICT the Key to Success ? An Analysis of ICT Impact on French Growth," Working Papers 2003-04, CEPII research center.
    17. Markus Poschke, 2018. "The Firm Size Distribution across Countries and Skill-Biased Change in Entrepreneurial Technology," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 1-41, July.
    18. Agnieszka Gehringer, 2011. "Pecuniary Knowledge Externalities across European Countries—Are there Leading Sectors?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 415-436.
    19. Khan, Safdar Ullah Khan, 2005. "Macro Determinants of Total Factor Productivity in Pakistan," MPRA Paper 8693, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Sep 2005.
    20. Voon, Jan P. & Chen, Edward K. Y., 2003. "Contributions of capital stock quality improvement to economic growth: the case of Hong Kong," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 631-644, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Total Factor Productivity; Labor Productivity; Productivity; Labour; Measurement; Capital Stock; Neoclassical Model; Growth; Data; Comparison; Growth Model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • C80 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - General
    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical

    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:sls:ipmsls:v:1:y:2000:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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: CSLS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cslssca.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.