Structural Transformation, the Mismeasurement of Productivity Growth, and the Cost Disease of Services

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Young, Alwyn
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.11.3635
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 3635-3667
• 关键词: unbalanced growth; shocks; OIL; anatomy

摘要

If workers self-select into industries based upon their relative productivity in different tasks, and comparative advantage is aligned with absolute advantage, then the average efficacy of a sector's workforce will be negatively correlated with its employment share. This might explain the difference in the reported productivity growth of contracting goods and expanding services. Instrumenting with defense expenditures, I find the elasticity of worker efficacy with respect to employment shares is substantially negative, albeit estimated imprecisely. The estimates suggest that the view that goods and services have similar productivity growth rates is a plausible alternative characterization of growth in developed economies.