2022•Economics LettersOpen access

The aggregate productivity slowdown: A system approach

Rafael Serrano-Quintero

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Abstract

I revisit the productivity slowdown debate by estimating the capital-labor elasticity and the bias of technical change for the U.S. economy under four different models of technical change. One with constant growth rates, one with a structural break in the constant growth rates, one in which growth is linear, and one with flexible time-varying growth rates. I find evidence in support of non-constant growth rates of factor-augmenting technical change. Labor-augmenting technical change growth rates are decelerating, while capital-augmenting technical change is non negligible but vanishes quickly.

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What this paper is about

I revisit the productivity slowdown debate by estimating the capital-labor elasticity and the bias of technical change for the U.S. economy under four different models of technical change. One with constant growth rates, one with a structural break in the constant growth rates, one in which growth is linear, and one with flexible time-varying growth rates. I find evidence in support of non-constant growth rates of factor-augmenting technical change. Labor-augmenting technical change growth rates are decelerating, while capital-augmenting technical change is non negligible but vanishes quickly.

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Available abstract

I revisit the productivity slowdown debate by estimating the capital-labor elasticity and the bias of technical change for the U.S. economy under four different models of technical change. One with constant growth rates, one with a structural break in the constant growth rates, one in which growth is linear, and one with flexible time-varying growth rates. I find evidence in support of non-constant growth rates of factor-augmenting technical change. Labor-augmenting technical change growth rates are decelerating, while capital-augmenting technical change is non negligible but vanishes quickly.

Key concepts: Slowdown, Economics, Technical change, Productivity, Solow residual, Total factor productivity, Constant elasticity of substitution, Constant (computer programming)

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