IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-03493705.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Engines of Sectoral Labor Productivity Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Zsofia Barany

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR)

  • Christian Siegel

    (Kent Business School, University of Kent)

Abstract

We study the origins of labor productivity growth and its differences across sectors. In our model, sectors employ workers of different occupations and various forms of capital, none of which are perfect substitutes, and technology evolves at the sector-factor cell level. Using the model we infer technologies from US data over 1960-2017. We find that sectoral differences in labor productivity growth are largely due to sectoral differences in the growth rate of routine labor augmenting technologies. Neither capital accumulation nor the occupational employment structure within sectors explains much of the sectoral differences in labor productivity growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Zsofia Barany & Christian Siegel, 2021. "Engines of Sectoral Labor Productivity Growth," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03493705, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03493705
    DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2020.07.007
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03493705
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-03493705/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.red.2020.07.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    2. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    3. Margarida Duarte & Diego Restuccia, 2010. "The Role of the Structural Transformation in Aggregate Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 129-173.
    4. Maya Eden & Paul Gaggl, 2018. "On the Welfare Implications of Automation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 15-43, July.
    5. Miklós Koren & Silvana Tenreyro, 2007. "Volatility and Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 243-287.
    6. Brent Neiman, 2014. "The Global Decline of the Labor Share," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 61-103.
    7. Zsófia L. Bárány & Christian Siegel, 2018. "Job Polarization and Structural Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 57-89, January.
    8. Robert Z. Lawrence, 2015. "Recent Declines in Labor's Share in US Income: A Preliminary Neoclassical Account," Working Paper Series WP15-10, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    9. Francisco J Buera & Joseph P Kaboski & Richard Rogerson & Juan I Vizcaino, 2022. "Skill-Biased Structural Change [“Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings”]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 592-625.
    10. Ezra Oberfield & Devesh Raval, 2021. "Micro Data and Macro Technology," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(2), pages 703-732, March.
    11. Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
    12. Margarida Duarte & Diego Restuccia, 2020. "Relative Prices and Sectoral Productivity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 1400-1443.
    13. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2014. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2509-2526, August.
    14. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    15. David H. Autor & David Dorn, 2013. "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1553-1597, August.
    16. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 5266, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. L. Rachel Ngai & Christopher A. Pissarides, 2007. "Structural Change in a Multisector Model of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 429-443, March.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Veronica Guerrieri, 2008. "Capital Deepening and Nonbalanced Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 467-498, June.
    19. Francisco J. Buera & Joseph P. Kaboski, 2012. "The Rise of the Service Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2540-2569, October.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4t83lre9hm91sq006n4940n19s is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Lee, Tim & Shin, Yongseok, 2017. "Horizonatal and Vertical Polarization: Task-Specific Technological Change in a Multi-Sector Economy," TSE Working Papers 17-800, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    22. Georg Duernecker & Berthold Herrendorf, 2022. "Structural Transformation of Occupation Employment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(356), pages 789-814, October.
    23. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2007. "Capital, innovation, and growth accounting," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 23(1), pages 79-93, Spring.
    24. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    25. Francesco Caselli & Wilbur John Coleman II, 2006. "The World Technology Frontier," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 499-522, June.
    26. Berthold Herrendorf & Christopher Herrington & Ákos Valentinyi, 2015. "Sectoral Technology and Structural Transformation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 104-133, October.
    27. Miguel A. León-Ledesma & Peter McAdam & Alpo Willman, 2010. "Identifying the Elasticity of Substitution with Biased Technical Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1330-1357, September.
    28. vom Lehn, Christian, 2020. "Labor market polarization, the decline of routine work, and technological change: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 62-80.
    29. Aum, Sangmin & Lee, Sang Yoon (Tim) & Shin, Yongseok, 2018. "Computerizing industries and routinizing jobs: Explaining trends in aggregate productivity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-21.
    30. Atish R. Ghosh & Holger C. Wolf, 1997. "Geographical and Sectoral Shocks in the U.S. Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 6180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    31. Berthold Herrendorf & Richard Rogerson & ?kos Valentinyi, 2013. "Two Perspectives on Preferences and Structural Transformation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2752-2789, December.
    32. Valentinyi, Akos & Herrendorf, Berthold & Duernecker, Georg, 2017. "Structural Change within the Service Sector and the Future of Baumol's Disease," CEPR Discussion Papers 12467, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    33. Per Krusell & Lee E. Ohanian & JosÈ-Victor RÌos-Rull & Giovanni L. Violante, 2000. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1029-1054, September.
    34. Stockman, Alan C., 1988. "Sectoral and national aggregate disturbances to industrial output in seven European countries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 387-409.
    35. Zsófia L. Bárány & Christian Siegel, 2018. "Job Polarization and Structural Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 57-89, January.
    36. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3567, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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. L. Rachel Ngai & Orhun Sevinc, 2020. "A Multisector Perspective on Wage Stagnation," Discussion Papers 2026, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    2. Sizhong Sun, 2023. "Firm heterogeneity, worker training and labor productivity: the role of endogenous self-selection," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 121-133, April.
    3. Nong, Duy & Mason-D’Croz, Daniel & Lu, Yingying & Marcos Martinez, Raymundo & Palmer, Jeda, 2021. "An introduction of GTEM-Food: A baseline calibration with a focus on food," Conference papers 333304, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Diego Comin & Ana Danieli & Martí Mestieri, 2020. "Income-Driven Labor-Market Polarization," Working Paper Series WP-2020-22, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    5. Sen, Ali, 2020. "Structural change within the services sector, Baumol's cost disease, and cross-country productivity differences," MPRA Paper 99614, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Georg Duernecker & Berthold Herrendorf, 2022. "Structural Transformation of Occupation Employment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(356), pages 789-814, October.
    7. Werner Pena & Christian Siegel, 2023. "Routine-biased technical change, structure of employment, and cross-country income differences," Studies in Economics 2301, School of Economics, University of Kent.

    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. Bárány, Zsófia L. & Siegel, Christian, 2020. "Biased technological change and employment reallocation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7vl4otetog8c6aaomlbfjid6fp is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Werner Pena & Christian Siegel, 2023. "Routine-biased technical change, structure of employment, and cross-country income differences," Studies in Economics 2301, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    4. Julieta Caunedo & David Jaume & Elisa Keller, 2023. "Occupational Exposure to Capital-Embodied Technical Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(6), pages 1642-1685, June.
    5. Chen, Chaoran, 2020. "Capital-skill complementarity, sectoral labor productivity, and structural transformation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    6. Gallipoli, Giovanni & Makridis, Christos A., 2018. "Structural transformation and the rise of information technology," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 91-110.
    7. Lee, Tim & Shin, Yongseok, 2017. "Horizonatal and Vertical Polarization: Task-Specific Technological Change in a Multi-Sector Economy," TSE Working Papers 17-800, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    8. Barany, Zsofia L. & Siegel, Christian, 2017. "Disentangling Occupation- and Sector-specific Technological Change," Economics Series 331, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    9. Georg Duernecker & Berthold Herrendorf, 2022. "Structural Transformation of Occupation Employment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(356), pages 789-814, October.
    10. Growiec, Jakub & McAdam, Peter & Mućk, Jakub, 2018. "Endogenous labor share cycles: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 74-93.
    11. Herrendorf, Berthold & Rogerson, Richard & Valentinyi, Ákos, 2014. "Growth and Structural Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 855-941, Elsevier.
    12. Zsófia L. Bárány & Christian Siegel, 2018. "Job Polarization and Structural Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 57-89, January.
    13. Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco & Long, Ngo Van & Poschke, Markus, 2018. "Capital-labor substitution, structural change and the labor income share," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 206-231.
    14. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/30j1vvprab87kpl0hore4b2sv1 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Michael Knoblach & Fabian Stöckl, 2020. "What Determines The Elasticity Of Substitution Between Capital And Labor? A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 847-875, September.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4he5e8ba3929rhrgcti3so9af is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Murat Ungor, 2017. "Productivity Growth and Labor Reallocation: Latin America versus East Asia," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 25-42, March.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/30j1vvprab87kpl0hore4b2sv1 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Matthess, Marcel & Kunkel, Stefanie, 2020. "Structural change and digitalization in developing countries: Conceptually linking the two transformations," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4t83lre9hm91sq006n4940n19s is not listed on IDEAS
    21. David Hémous & Morten Olsen, 2022. "The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 179-223, January.
    22. Maya Eden & Paul Gaggl, 2018. "On the Welfare Implications of Automation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 15-43, July.
    23. Bertinelli, Luisito & Cardi, Olivier & Restout, Romain, 2022. "Labor market effects of technology shocks biased toward the traded sector," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    24. 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.
    25. vom Lehn, Christian, 2018. "Understanding the decline in the U.S. labor share: Evidence from occupational tasks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 191-220.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Biased technological change; Structural transformation; Labor productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:hal:spmain:hal-03493705. 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: Contact - Sciences Po Departement of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.