IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7544.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor- and Capital- Augmenting Technical Change

Author

Listed:
  • Daron Acemoglu

Abstract

I analyze an economy in which profit-maximizing firms can undertake both labor- or capital-augmenting technological improvements. In the long run, the economy looks like the standard growth model with purely labor-augmenting technical change, and the share of labor in GDP is constant. Along the transition path, however, there is capital-augmenting technical change and factor shares change. A range of policies may have counterintuitive implications due to their effect on the direction of technical change. For example, taxes on capital income reduce the labor share in the short run, but increase it in the medium/long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Daron Acemoglu, 2000. "Labor- and Capital- Augmenting Technical Change," NBER Working Papers 7544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7544
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7544.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    3. Rebelo, Sergio, 1991. "Long-Run Policy Analysis and Long-Run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 500-521, June.
    4. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1991. "Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 43-61.
    5. Ricardo J. Caballero & Adam B. Jaffe, 1993. "How High Are the Giants' Shoulders: An Empirical Assessment of Knowledge Spillovers and Creative Destruction in a Model of Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 15-86, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Young, Alwyn, 1993. "Invention and Bounded Learning by Doing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 443-472, June.
    7. Jaume Ventura, 1997. "Growth and Interdependence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 57-84.
    8. Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz & Luis A. Rivera-Batiz, 2018. "Economic Integration and Endogenous Growth," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Francisco L Rivera-Batiz & Luis A Rivera-Batiz (ed.), International Trade, Capital Flows and Economic Development, chapter 1, pages 3-32, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    10. Larry E. Jones & Rodolfo Manuelli, 1990. "A Convex Model of Equilibrium Growth," NBER Working Papers 3241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jaume Ventura & Francesco Caselli, 2000. "A Representative Consumer Theory of Distribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 909-926, September.
    12. Jones, Larry E & Manuelli, Rodolfo E, 1990. "A Convex Model of Equilibrium Growth: Theory and Policy Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1008-1038, October.
    13. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    14. Segerstrom, Paul S & Anant, T C A & Dinopoulos, Elias, 1990. "A Schumpeterian Model of the Product Life Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1077-1091, December.
    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. Long, N.V. & Wong, K.Y., 1996. "Endogenous Growth and International Trade: A Survey," Working Papers 96-07, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    2. Nowak-Lehmann D., Felicitas, 2000. "Was there endogenous growth in Chile (1960 - 1998)? A test of the AK-model," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 7, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    3. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1994. "Endogenous Innovation in the Theory of Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    4. Helpman, Elhanan, 1992. "Endogenous macroeconomic growth theory," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 237-267, April.
    5. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Directed Technical Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 781-809.
    6. Jones, Larry E. & Manuelli, Rodolfo E., 1997. "The sources of growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 75-114, January.
    7. Pedro Rui Mazeda Gil & Paulo Brito & Óscar Afonso, 2008. "A Model of Quality Ladders with Horizontal Entry," FEP Working Papers 296, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    8. Stolpe, Michael, 1995. "Technology and the dynamics of specialization in open economies," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 738, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Segerstrom, Paul, 1996. "Lecture Notes on Knowledge and Human Capital in the New Growth Theory," Working Paper Series 475, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    10. Andrew Bernard & Márcio Gomes Pinto Garcia, 1997. "Public and private provision of infrastructure and economic development," Textos para discussão 375, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    11. Justin Yifu Lin & Pengfei Zhang, 2007. "Development Strategy, Optimal Industrial Structure and Economic Growth in Less Developed Countries," Development Economics Working Papers 22710, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    12. William Darity & Lewis S. Davis, 2005. "Growth, trade and uneven development," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 29(1), pages 141-170, January.
    13. Valentinyi, Ákos, 1995. "Endogén növekedéselmélet. Áttekintés [Endogeneous theory of growth: a review]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 582-594.
    14. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:2:y:2002:i:1:p:1-15 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Gancia, Gino & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2005. "Horizontal Innovation in the Theory of Growth and Development," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 111-170, Elsevier.
    16. Boldrin, Michele & Levine, David K., 2008. "Perfectly competitive innovation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 435-453, April.
    17. Klenow, Peter J. & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 2005. "Externalities and Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 817-861, Elsevier.
    18. Voosholz, Frauke, 2014. "A survey on modeling economic growth. With special interest on natural resource use," CAWM Discussion Papers 69, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    19. Jérôme Creel & Maurizio Iacopetta, 2015. "Macroeconomic policy and potential growth," Sciences Po publications 2015-15, Sciences Po.
    20. Hollanders, Hugo & Weel, Bas ter, 1999. "Skill-Biased Technical Change: On Endogenous Growth, Wage Inequality and Government Intervention," Research Memorandum 013, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    21. Aykut Kibritçioglu, 2002. "On the Smithian origins of "new" trade and growth theories," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 2(1), pages 1-15.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology

    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:nbr:nberwo:7544. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.