IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/15402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting Productivity Dynamics in Europe: A New Measure of Utilization-Adjusted TFP Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Comin, Diego
  • Quintana Gonzalez, Javier
  • Schmitz, Tom
  • Trigari, Antonella

Abstract

We compute new estimates for Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth in five European countries and in the United States. Departing from standard methods, we account for positive profits and use firm surveys to proxy for unobserved changes in factor utilization. These novelties have a major impact in Europe, where our estimated TFP growth series are less volatile and less cyclical than the ones obtained with standard methods. Based on our approach, we provide annual industry-level and aggregate TFP series, as well as the first estimates of utilization-adjusted quarterly TFP growth in Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Comin, Diego & Quintana Gonzalez, Javier & Schmitz, Tom & Trigari, Antonella, 2020. "Revisiting Productivity Dynamics in Europe: A New Measure of Utilization-Adjusted TFP Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 15402, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP15402
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Brynjolfsson & Daniel Rock & Chad Syverson, 2021. "The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 333-372, January.
    2. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2016. "The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 205-240, October.
    3. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2004. "A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1055-1084, September.
    4. Robert J. Gordon, 2016. "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10544.
    5. Philippe Aghion & Antonin Bergeaud & Timo Boppart & Peter J. Klenow & Huiyu Li, 2019. "Missing Growth from Creative Destruction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2795-2822, August.
    6. John Fernald & Robert Inklaar, 2020. "Does Disappointing European Productivity Growth Reflect a Slowing Trend? Weighing the Evidence and Assessing the Future," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 38, pages 104-135, Spring.
    7. Christoph E. Boehm & Nitya Pandalai-Nayar, 2022. "Convex Supply Curves," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3941-3969, December.
    8. Planas, C. & Roeger, W. & Rossi, A., 2013. "The information content of capacity utilization for detrending total factor productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 577-590.
    9. Comin, Diego & Quintana Gonzalez, Javier & Schmitz, Tom & Trigari, Antonella, 2020. "Revisiting Productivity Dynamics in Europe: A New Measure of Utilization-Adjusted TFP Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 15402, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Huo, Zhen & Levchenko, Andrei A. & Pandalai-Nayar, Nitya, 2023. "Utilization-adjusted TFP across countries: Measurement and implications for international comovement," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    11. Samuel Bentolila & Juan Dolado & Juan Jimeno, 2012. "Reforming an insider-outsider labor market: the Spanish experience," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-29, December.
    12. Valerie A. Ramey & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2001. "Displaced Capital: A Study of Aerospace Plant Closings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 958-992, October.
    13. Sanderson, Eleanor & Windmeijer, Frank, 2016. "A weak instrument F-test in linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 212-221.
    14. Matthias Meier & Timo Reinelt, 2020. "Monetary Policy,Markup Dispersion, and Aggregate TFP," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_161, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    15. Imbs, Jean M., 1999. "Technology, growth and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 65-80, August.
    16. Robert Inklaar, 2007. "Cyclical Productivity in Europe and the United States: Evaluating the Evidence on Returns to Scale and Input Utilization," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(296), pages 822-841, November.
    17. Haskel, J & Corrado, C & Jona-Lasinio, C & Iommi, M, 2012. "Intangible capital and growth in advanced economies: measurement methods and comparative results," Working Papers 9913, Imperial College, London, Imperial College Business School.
    18. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 1995. "Capital Utilization and Returns to Scale," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 67-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Marek Jarociński & Peter Karadi, 2020. "Deconstructing Monetary Policy Surprises—The Role of Information Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 1-43, April.
    20. Crouzet, Nicolas & Eberly, Janice, 2021. "Intangibles, markups, and the measurement of productivity growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 92-109.
    21. Loukas Karabarbounis & Brent Neiman, 2019. "Accounting for Factorless Income," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 167-228.
    22. Joel M. David & Venky Venkateswaran, 2019. "The Sources of Capital Misallocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2531-2567, July.
    23. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    24. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    25. Mary O'Mahony & Marcel P. Timmer, 2009. "Output, Input and Productivity Measures at the Industry Level: The EU KLEMS Database," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(538), pages 374-403, June.
    26. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    27. Piton, Sophie, 2021. "Economic integration and unit labour costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    28. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Thwaites, Gregory & Vicondoa, Alejandro, 2020. "Monetary policy transmission in the United Kingdom: A high frequency identification approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    29. Berndt, Ernst R. & Fuss, Melvyn A., 1986. "Productivity measurement with adjustments for variations in capacity utilization and other forms of temporary equilibrium," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 7-29.
    30. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 167-201, February.
    31. Charles R. Hulten, 1978. "Growth Accounting with Intermediate Inputs," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 511-518.
    32. Susanto Basu, 2019. "Are Price-Cost Markups Rising in the United States? A Discussion of the Evidence," NBER Working Papers 26057, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Fabiano Schivardi & Tom Schmitz, 2020. "The IT Revolution and Southern Europe’s Two Lost Decades [Lack of Selection and Limits to Delegation: Firm Dynamics in Developing Countries]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2441-2486.
    34. Costello, Donna M, 1993. "A Cross-Country, Cross-Industry Comparison of Productivity Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 207-222, April.
    35. Simon Gilchrist & Egon Zakrajsek, 2012. "Credit Spreads and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1692-1720, June.
    36. Haskel, Jonathan & Iommi, Massimiliano, 2012. "Intangible Capital and Growth in Advanced Economies: Measurement and Comparative Results," CEPR Discussion Papers 9061, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    37. Jan De Loecker & Jan Eeckhout & Gabriel Unger, 2020. "The Rise of Market Power and the Macroeconomic Implications [“Econometric Tools for Analyzing Market Outcomes”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 135(2), pages 561-644.
    38. Carol Corrado & Joe Mattey, 1997. "Capacity Utilization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 151-167, Winter.
    39. Simcha Barkai, 2020. "Declining Labor and Capital Shares," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2421-2463, October.
    40. Matthew D. Shapiro, 1989. "Assessing the Federal Reserve's Measures of Capacity and Utilization," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(1), pages 181-242.
    41. Bart van Ark & Mary O'Mahoney & Marcel P. Timmer, 2008. "The Productivity Gap between Europe and the United States: Trends and Causes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 25-44, Winter.
    42. Diego Anzoategui & Diego Comin & Mark Gertler & Joseba Martinez, 2019. "Endogenous Technology Adoption and R&D as Sources of Business Cycle Persistence," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 67-110, July.
    43. Amat Adarov & Robert Stehrer, 2019. "Tangible and Intangible Assets in the Growth Performance of the EU, Japan and the US," wiiw Research Reports 442, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    44. Robert E. Hall, 2004. "Measuring Factor Adjustment Costs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(3), pages 899-927.
    45. Susanto Basu, 2019. "Are Price-Cost Markups Rising in the United States? A Discussion of the Evidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henri Keränen & Sakari Lähdemäki, 2020. "Identification of fiscal SVARs in small open economies using trading partner forecast errors as instruments," Working Papers 330, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    2. Gantert, Konstantin, 2022. "The impact of active aggregate demand on utilisation-adjusted TFP," IWH Discussion Papers 9/2022, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    3. Diego A. Comin & Javier Quintana Gonzalez & Tom G. Schmitz & Antonella Trigari, 2020. "A New Measure of Utilization-adjusted TFP Growth for Europe and the United States," NBER Working Papers 28008, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Diego Comin & Javier Quintana & Tom Schmitz & Antonella Trigari, 2021. "Measuring TFP: The role of profits, adjustment costs, and capacity utilization," Working Papers 2143, Banco de España.
    5. Comin, Diego & Quintana Gonzalez, Javier & Schmitz, Tom & Trigari, Antonella, 2020. "Revisiting Productivity Dynamics in Europe: A New Measure of Utilization-Adjusted TFP Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 15402, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Gantert, Konstantin, 2022. "The Impact of Active Aggregate Demand on Utilization-Adjusted TFP," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264103, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Josh Martin & Kyle Jones, 2023. "An Occupation and Asset-Driven Approach to Capital Utilization Adjustment in Productivity Statistics," NBER Chapters, in: Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Piton, Sophie, 2021. "Economic integration and unit labour costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    9. Josh Martin & Kyle Jones, 2022. "An Occupation and Asset Driven Approach to Capital Utilisation Adjustment in Productivity Statistics," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2022-11, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).

    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. Diego A. Comin & Javier Quintana Gonzalez & Tom G. Schmitz & Antonella Trigari, 2020. "A New Measure of Utilization-adjusted TFP Growth for Europe and the United States," NBER Working Papers 28008, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Diego Comin & Javier Quintana & Tom Schmitz & Antonella Trigari, 2021. "Measuring TFP: The role of profits, adjustment costs, and capacity utilization," Working Papers 2143, Banco de España.
    3. Diego Comin & Antonella Trigari & Javier Quintana Gonzalez & Tom Schmitz, 2019. "Measuring Productivity Growth in the Presence of Adjustment Costs, Markups and Variable Capacity Utilization," 2019 Meeting Papers 666, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Goldin, Ian & Koutroumpis, Pantelis & Lafond, François & Winkler, Julian, 2020. "Why is productivity slowing down?," MPRA Paper 99172, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Maarten de Ridder, 2022. "Market power and innovation in the intangible economy," POID Working Papers 064, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Thomas Hasenzagl & Luis Perez, 2023. "The Micro-Aggregated Profit Share," Papers 2309.12945, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    7. Ugur, Mehmet, 2023. "Innovation, market power and the labour share: evidence from OECD industries," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 38374, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    8. Carter Davis & Alexandre Sollaci & James Traina, 2022. "Profit Puzzles or: Public Firm Profits Have Fallen," Papers 2201.09160, arXiv.org.
    9. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920.
    10. Kyoji Fukao & Cristiano Perugini, 2021. "The Long‐Run Dynamics of the Labor Share in Japan," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(2), pages 445-480, June.
    11. Matias Covarrubias & Germán Gutiérrez & Thomas Philippon, 2019. "From Good to Bad Concentration? US Industries over the Past 30 Years," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2019, volume 34, pages 1-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Piton, Sophie, 2021. "Economic integration and unit labour costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org.
    14. Philippe Aghion & Antonin Bergeaud & Huiyu Li & Peter Klenow & Timo Boppart, 2019. "A Theory of Falling Growth and Rising Rents," 2019 Meeting Papers 458, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Daniel Berkowitz, 2020. "Declining Market Competition in China," Working Paper 6897, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    16. Mumtaz Ahmad & John Fernald & Hashmat Khan, 2019. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production, Redux," Carleton Economic Papers 19-07, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    17. Kurozumi, Takushi & Van Zandweghe, Willem, 2022. "Macroeconomic changes with declining trend inflation: Complementarity with the superstar firm hypothesis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Mondolo, Jasmine, 2021. "Macroeconomic dynamics and the role of market power. The case of Italy," MPRA Paper 110172, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Oct 2021.
    19. De Ridder, Maarten, 2024. "Market power and innovation in the intangible economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120285, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Chen, Wen & Niebel, Thomas & Saam, Marianne, 2016. "Are intangibles more productive in ICT-intensive industries? Evidence from EU countries," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 471-484.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:15402. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.