Labor Productivity and Inter-Sectoral Reallocation of Labor in Singapore (1965-2002)*

This paper investigates the impact of the shifts of labor across sectors on aggregate productivity growth through a decomposition of aggregate productivity growth in Singapore over the period 1965-2002. The static shift-share analysis is utilized to for this purpose. The results show that the shifts of labor paid off well in terms of their contribution to labor productivity especially for manufacturing in the 1985 era which was characterized by interventionist labor market policies of the government. On the other hand, the impact of labor shifts is negative in the post-1985 era which is characterized by a more liberalized labor market.