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Estimating UK capital adjustment costs

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  • Charlotta Groth

Abstract

This paper estimates UK capital adjustment costs, using a data set for 34 industries spanning the whole UK economy for the period 1970-2000. The results show that it is costly to install new capital, and that it has been more costly to adjust the level of non-ICT capital (plant, machinery, buildings and vehicles) compared to the level of ICT capital (computers, software and telecommunications). The results are applied to an analysis of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. That analysis is focused on the 1990s - a period when the growth rate of the standard measure of TFP fell in the United Kingdom, while rising sharply in the United States. The estimates suggest that capital adjustment costs accounted for around two thirds of the observed slowdown in UK TFP growth. However, the adjustment is not large enough to reverse the finding that UK TFP growth declines in the second half of the 1990s, unlike the US experience of rising TFP growth.

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  • Charlotta Groth, 2005. "Estimating UK capital adjustment costs," Bank of England working papers 258, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:258
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    File URL: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2005/WP258.pdf
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    2. Colin Ellis, 2006. "Elasticities, markups and technical progress: evidence from a state-space approach," Bank of England working papers 300, Bank of England.
    3. Karlygash Kuralbayeva & David Vines, 2008. "Shocks to Terms of Trade and Risk-premium in an Intertemporal Model: The Dutch Disease and a Dutch Party," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 277-303, July.
    4. Vines, David & Kuralbayeva, Karlygash, 2006. "Terms of Trade Shocks in an Intertemporal Model: Should We Worry about the Dutch Disease or Excessive Borrowing?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5857, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Charlotta Groth, 2008. "Quantifying UK Capital Adjustment Costs," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(298), pages 310-325, May.
    6. Ludmila Fadejeva & Aleksejs Melihovs, 2010. "Measuring Total Factor Productivity and Variable Factor Utilization," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(5), pages 63-101, September.
    7. Karlygash Kuralbayeva, 2007. "Inflation persistence: Implications for a design of monetary policy in a small open economy subject to external shocks," CEIS Research Paper 93, Tor Vergata University, CEIS.
    8. Oliner, Stephen D. & Sichel, Daniel E. & Stiroh, Kevin J., 2008. "Explaining a productive decade," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 633-673.
    9. Khayyat, Nabaz T. & Lee, Jongsu & Lee, Jeong-Dong, 2014. "How ICT Investment Influences Energy Demand in South Korea and Japan?," MPRA Paper 55454, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Hashmat Khan & John Tsoukalas, 2005. "Technology Shocks and UK Business Cycles," Macroeconomics 0512006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Groth, Charlotta, 2006. "Calibrating capital adjustment costs in the New-Keynesian model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 26-30, October.
    12. Charlotta Groth & Soledad Nuñez & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2006. "Productivity growth, adjustment costs and variable factor utilisation: the UK case," Bank of England working papers 295, Bank of England.

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