Sectoral Technology and Structural Transformation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Herrendorf, Berthold; Herrington, Christopher; Valentinyi, Akos
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Virginia Commonwealth University; Cardiff University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20130041
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 104-133
• 关键词: income shares; substitution; US

摘要

We assess how the properties of technology affect structural transformation, i.e., the reallocation of production factors across the broad sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, and services. To this end, we estimate sectoral constant elasticity of substitution (CES) and Cobb-Douglas production functions on postwar US data. We find that differences in technical progress across the three sectors are the dominant force behind structural transformation whereas other differences across sectoral technology are of second-order importance. Our findings imply that - Cobb-Douglas sectoral production functions that differ only in technical progress capture the main technological forces behind the postwar US structural transformation.