资源配置与中国非农部门全要素生产率* ——基于制造业和服务业之间资源错配的分析

近年来,经济学家与政策制定者之间逐渐达成共识：有限的资源未能得到优化配置是阻碍发展中经济体生产率水平提升的重要原因。本文以1993-2011年中国制造业和服务业分行业数据为研究样本,从经验层面上系统分析了制造业和服务业之间的资源错配对中国非农部门TFP的影响。本文研究发现：（1）相对于中国制造业TFP的持续改善,服务业的TFP则长期徘徊在低位,二者之间的资源错配程度在进入21世纪后明显加重,造成非农部门TFP近40%的损失;（2）21世纪以来,制造业和服务业间的资源错配绝大部分来源于装备制造业与生产性服务业之间的错配;（3）装备制造业和生产性服务业之间的资本错配普遍高于劳动力错配。本文的引申含义是,现阶段的产业政策目标主要应定位于促进制造业和服务业二者之间的协调发展。     

Misallocation and financial market frictions: Some direct evidence from the dispersion in borrowing costs

Financial frictions distort the allocation of resources among productive units—all else equal, firms whose financing choices are affected by such frictions face higher borrowing costs than firms with ready access to capital markets. As a result, input choices may differ systematically across firms in ways that are unrelated to their productive efficiency. We propose an accounting framework that allows us to assess empirically the magnitude of the loss in aggregate resources due to such misallocation. To a second-order approximation, the framework requires only information on the dispersion in borrowing costs across firms, which we measure—for a subset of U.S. manufacturing firms—directly from the interest rate spreads on their outstanding publicly-traded debt. Given the observed dispersion in borrowing costs, our approximation method implies a relatively modest loss in efficiency due to resource misallocation—on the order of 1 to 2 percent of measured total factor productivity (TFP). In our framework, the correlation between firm size and borrowing costs has no bearing on TFP losses under the assumption that financial distortions and firm-level efficiency are jointly log-normally distributed. To take into account the effect of covariation between firm size and borrowing costs, we consider a more general framework, which dispenses with the assumption of log-normality and which implies somewhat higher estimates of the resource losses—about 3.5 percent of measured TFP. Counterfactual experiments indicate that dispersion in borrowing costs must be an order of magnitude higher than that observed in the U.S. financial data, in order for misallocation—arising from financial distortions—to account for a significant fraction of measured TFP differentials across countries.     

要素配置扭曲与农业全要素生产率

要素市场扭曲会导致农户个体对资本、劳动等生产要素配置扭曲,最终降低农业的总量全要素生产率(TFP)。本文运用2003-2007年全国农村固定跟踪观察农户数据,实证分析了中国东、中、西部以及东北地区农户家庭生产的要素配置扭曲程度及其与总量TFP的关系,发现不同地区农户要素配置的扭曲存在显著的差异:从扭曲水平和发散程度来看,东部和西部地区的资源配置扭曲较为严重,中部、东北地区的配置效率较高。即使不考虑技术因素,如果有效消除资本和劳动配置的扭曲,农户的农业TFP有望再增长20%以上,其中东部和西部地区的改进空间超过30%。要素配置的扭曲程度主要取决于农村非农就业机会、金融市场和土地规模。促进社会转型是提高农业生产率的主要途径。     

Productivity and misallocation of energy resources: Evidence from Korea’s manufacturing Sector

This paper analyzes the role of allocative efficiency of energy resources with respect to total factor productivity (TFP) in the Korean manufacturing sector. Using firm-level data for Korea, we extend the framework of Hsieh and Klenow (2009) to measure allocative inefficiency of energy markets as a function of energy price distortions. Our results indicate that between the years 2000 and 2014, intra-industry misallocation has increased. With respect to energy resources, this is truer in the low-oil-price periods than in other periods. An improvement in allocative efficiency could be attained by equalizing total factor revenue productivity across firms within an industry. In reallocating capital, labor, and energy resources, hypothetical TFP increases of 51.3 % and 71.7 % above actual levels in 2000 and 2014, respectively, could have been achieved. The evolution of firm productivity has been shaped by energy (electricity and fuel) market distortion and capital market distortion. Our evidence suggests that government (energy) price intervention is likely to have played an important role in productivity loss and in allocative inefficiency observed in energy markets.     

价格扭曲、要素错配和效率损失:理论和应用

本文把关于资源错配和效率损失的讨论纳入到传统的增长核算框架中,提出了测度要素价格扭曲引起的资源错配对于TFP以及产出变动影响的方法。应用这个分析框架,本文分析了我国制造业资源错配的影响。我们发现目前中国制造业内部各子行业间的资源错配大约造成了实际产出和潜在产出之间15%的缺口,并且在这些年中,扭曲没有得到显著的纠正。     

Tax collection,the informal sector,and productivity

An important determinant of informality in a country is its tax enforcement capacity, which some authors argue further distorts the decisions of firms and creates inefficiency. In this paper, I assess the quantitative effect of incomplete tax enforcement on aggregate output and productivity using a dynamic general equilibrium framework. I calibrate the model using data for Mexico, where the informal sector is large. I then investigate the effects of improving enforcement. I find that under complete enforcement, Mexico's labor productivity and output would be 19% higher under perfect competition and 34% higher under monopolistic competition. The source of this gain is the removal of the distortions induced by incomplete enforcement of taxes. These distortions affect the economy in three ways: by reducing the capital–labor ratios of informal establishments; by allowing low-productive entrepreneurs to enter; and by misallocating resources towards low-productive establishments. As a result, TFP and capital accumulation are reduced, and hence output. I decompose the gains following the guidelines of five leading papers in the literature of resource misallocation across plants. I isolate the effects of pure factor misallocation, distorted occupational choices, capital accumulation, and complementarities. I also study marginal improvements in enforcement and find that there is an inverted-U relationship between the size of the informal sector and output. This reflects the fact that improving enforcement entails a tradeoff: more taxes vs. fewer distortions.     

Inter-provincial migration and inequality during Vietnam's transition

Vietnam's economic boom during the transition to a market economy has centered on very rapid growth in some sectors and provinces, yet poverty has diminished across the entire country. With capital investments highly concentrated by province and sector, geographic labor mobility may be critical in spreading the gains from growth. Conversely, rising income inequality may be attributable in part to impediments to migration. We first use census data to investigate migration patterns and determinants. We then examine the role of migration as an influence on income ratios between pairs of provinces. The former analysis robustly confirms economic motives for migration but also suggests the existence of poverty-related labor immobility at the provincial level. Examination of income ratios between pairs of provinces reveals that the impact of migration on inequality can be either negative or positive. A robust inequality-reducing impact of migration is found for migration flows into provinces where most of Vietnam's trade-oriented industrial investments are located.     

Research and development,productive structure and economic effects: Assessing the role of public financing in Brazil

Investments in research and development (R&D) have played a key role in promoting productivity improvements and economic growth. This paper explores the economics effects of public R&D investment funding in Brazil, taking into account the changes in total factor productivity (TFP) in high-, medium- and low-technology sectors. Public funding plays an important role in the development of R&D activities in Brazil and its participation has increased since 2010. Our paper simulates a withdrawal of R&D investments and TFP linked to public financing from an R&D-based computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which recognizes the stock-flow relation between R&D investment and knowledge capital. Without public R&D investment funding, the main findings indicate losses in TFP, adverse effects on the formation of physical capital, shrinkage of more intensive R&D industries, and more future dependence on the public sector for knowledge stock, especially for education.     

Misallocations and policy constraints on mergers in the modern manufacturing sector

Resource misallocation has resulted in differences in inter-economy total factor productivity (TFP). However, the factors driving different levels of resource misallocation still need to be investigated. This paper argues that firm exits through mergers can be an important source of change in the level of resource misallocation. Traditional policy regulations for the key manufacturing sectors are based on either the four-firm concentration ratio (CR4) or the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), which measure the market concentration. This paper takes a different approach. It first deduces the optimal input allocation by measuring aggregate resource misallocation; this approach allows us to identify productivity-improving merger events and complements the market concentration indexes, which have traditionally been the focus of attention. We then construct a unique dataset in the TFT-LCD industry to analyze the change in productivity resulting from the merger between two major TFT-LCD producers, Chimei and Innolux, in the first quarter of 2010. The proposed and actual team of Chimei and Innolux record a remarkable efficiency jump by achieving optimal input allocation immediately after this merger. We further interpret this scenario as a firm that is smaller and more efficient pre-merger, acquiring a larger weaker producer in a prominent IT manufacturing sector.     

Labour misallocation in China: 1980–2010

This article measures labour misallocation in Chinese provinces over the period 1980–2010 and investigates possible causal factors of the misallocation. It finds that: (1) labour misallocation fell substantially in the first half of 1980s, but there was no monotonic trend of improvement since then. (2) Wage differentials cross primary, secondary and tertiary sectors accounted for a substantial portion of measured overall labour misallocation; the secondary sector’s wage deviations from value of the marginal product of labour (VMPL) also contributed to labour misallocation. (3) There was persistence in labour misallocation, but a higher level of urbanization, the development of the tertiary sector, increasing trade openness and the growth of the nonstate sector appear to have contributed to more efficient labour allocation.     

Macroeconomic Policy and Ownership Structure in a Mixed Transition Economy

Both state and non-state sectors have important roles in the Chinese economy. A dynamic model to analyze capital accumulation in state and non-state sectors is constructed and the fiscal and monetary policy requirements for the coexistence of a state sector and a non-state sector are derived. Our findings suggest that the effects of fiscal and monetary policies on ownership structure depend on which government subsidization policy is implemented. The results indicate that lowering tax rates and tightening the money supply can speed up the transition pace, but these policies do not necessarily contribute to developing an economy with a greater share for the non-state sector.J. Comp. Econom., December 2000, 28(4), pp. 762–785. College of Economics, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1, Gakuen-Cho, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan.     

Misallocation and productivity in the lead up to the Eurozone crisis

We use Portuguese firm-level data to investigate whether changes in resource misallocation may have contributed to the poor economic performance of some southern and peripheral European countries leading up to the Eurozone crisis. We extend Hsieh and Klenow’s (2009) methodology to include intermediate inputs and consider all sectors of the economy (agriculture, manufacturing, and services). We find that within-industry misallocation almost doubled between 1996 and 2011. Equalizing total factor revenue productivity across firms within an industry could have boosted valued-added 48% and 79% above actual levels in 1996 and 2011, respectively. This implies that deteriorating allocative efficiency may have shaved around 1.3 percentage points off the annual GDP growth during the 1996–2011 period. Allocative efficiency deterioration, despite being a widespread phenomenon, is significantly higher in the service sector, with 5 industries accounting for 72% of the total variation. Capital distortions are the most important source of potential value-added efficiency gains, especially in the service sector, with a relative contribution increasing over time.     

非农部门劳动力增长速度研究

根据影响非农部门劳动力增长速度的相关因素,运用C-D生产函数,利用1996～2004年间的非农部门有关数据,对影响非农部门劳动力增长速度的有关因素进行实证分析,结果表明影响我国非农部门劳动力增长速度的主要因素为:资本增长速度、非农部门实物工资增长速度、技术进步引起的劳动边际产出的增长速度和工业劳动边际产出对劳动力的弹性。政府应通过提高资本质量、吸引国外投资,保持物价稳定、控制工资上涨,加强创新力度,提高员工技能以促进非农部门劳动力增长。     

The dual economy in long-run development

A salient feature of developing economies is the coexistence of a modern commercial sector alongside a traditional subsistence sector—the dual economy. The apparent differences in productivity between sectors imply substantial losses in aggregate productivity. Existing theories of the dual economy rely on exogenous price distortions, and cannot explain why or if these distortions evolve over the course of development. This paper provides a model of the dual economy in which the productivity differences arise endogenously because of a non-separability between the value of market and non-market time in the traditional sector. Incorporating endogenous fertility, the model then demonstrates how a dual economy will originate, persist, and eventually disappear within a unified growth framework. An implication is that traditional sector productivity growth will exacerbate the inefficiencies of a dual economy and produce slower overall growth than will modern sector productivity improvements.     

Information and Communications Technology as a General-Purpose Technology: Evidence from US Industry Data

Abstract. Many people point to information and communications technology (ICT) as the key for understanding the acceleration in productivity in the United States since the mid-1990s. Stories of ICT as a 'general-purpose technology' suggest that measured total factor productivity (TFP) should rise in ICT-using sectors (reflecting either unobserved accumulation of intangible organizational capital; spillovers; or both), but with a long lag. Contemporaneously, however, investments in ICT may be associated with lower TFP as resources are diverted to reorganization and learning. We find that US industry results are consistent with general-purpose technology (GPT) stories: the acceleration after the mid-1990s was broad-based – located primarily in ICT-using industries rather than ICT-producing industries. Furthermore, industry TFP accelerations in the 2000s are positively correlated with (appropriately weighted) industry ICT capital growth in the 1990s. Indeed, as GPT stories would suggest, after controlling for past ICT investment, industry TFP accelerations are negatively correlated with increases in ICT usage in the 2000s.     

International factor mobility,informal interest rate and capital market imperfection: A general equilibrium analysis

This paper makes an attempt to provide a theory of determination of interest rate in the informal credit market in a less developed economy in terms of a three-sector static deterministic general equilibrium model. There are two informal sectors which obtain production loans from a monopolistic moneylender and employ labour from the informal labour market. On the other hand, the formal sector employs labour at an institutionally fixed wage rate and takes loans from the competitive formal credit market. We show that an inflow of foreign capital and/or an emigration of labour raises (lowers) the informal (formal) interest rate but lowers the competitive wage rate in the informal labour market when the informal manufacturing sector is more capital-intensive vis-à-vis the informal agricultural sector. International factor mobility, therefore, raises the degrees of distortions in both the factor markets in this case.     

Labor market dynamics in urban China and the role of the state sector

This paper studies the effect of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on the dynamics of the Chinese urban labor market. Using longitudinally matched monthly panel data, we document very low labor force dynamics in the state sector, which leads to a high long-term unemployment rate. We develop and estimate an equilibrium search and matching model with three differences between the state and non-state sectors: labor productivity, labor adjustment cost, and workers’ bargaining power. Counterfactual analysis shows that, among the three channels, reducing the bargaining power of state sector workers is most effective in reducing unemployment duration and unemployment rate.     

The role of Provincial Government Spending Composition in growth and convergence in China

China’s development policy since 1978 has differed across regions. With rapid aggregate growth has come widening regional inequality. The fiscal decentralisation reforms in 1994 shifted political pressure onto provincial officials to boost local growth through local public investments. These investments affect regional convergence by counteracting regulatory frictions in factor accumulation, and can also determine steady-state growth. However, the effect of public spending allocations across physical and human capital on growth and convergence processes is empirically unexplored for Chinese provinces. We take provincial time-series data on public spending by category, finding local public spending and its components augment convergence rates differently across regions. Spending on education and health contributes significantly more to growth and convergence than capital spending, confirming that the public capital-spending bias is not a local growth-optimising strategy. We suggest a policy of aligning local government promotion incentives to human capital targets to correct local resource misallocation.     

Why is TFP growth sectorally concentrated?

Research shows that total factor productivity (TFP) growth is weak in European countries. This is inter alia attributed to the fact that substantial TFP growth is limited to a few industries. Because TFP growth is typically understood as technological progress, it is concluded that technology diffusion between sectors in Europe is hampered. We use EU KLEMS data sets to decompose sectoral TFP for nine European countries by means of a Malmquist approach in order to identify potential sources besides technical progress. Applying Harberger diagrams, we describe the sectoral distribution of TFP growth, efficiency gains and losses, economies of scale and technological progress. The analysis reveals that technological progress is quite evenly distributed across sectors in most European countries. The wide scattering of TFP growth is explained by deviating efficiency developments and the unused economies of scale. We conclude that the technology transfer between sectors in most European countries seems to work. Therefore, Europe in general does not need a new technology policy, but a further integration of the markets and a reduction of national market entry barriers. This requires further unification of pan-European standards in fields like trade and crafts codes or consumer protection policies.     

Structural change and misallocation: Firm‐level evidence from Poland*

Early transition literature linked a large number of firm failures with the inability to overcome the pre‐transition misallocation of resources, that is, the inadequate capital–labour ratio. We look at the link between misallocation and firm survival using a rich firm‐level dataset of over 1,600 manufacturing plants established in a centrally planned economy after 1945. Our duration models include the standard Olley–Pakes misallocation measures as well as a firm‐level measure of the counterfactual level of capital that takes into account the present‐day market allocation and productivity. We show that while privatization is positively related to firm survival, misallocation (a) was more of a firm‐level than sector‐level phenomenon and, more importantly, (b) it, in general, did not have a sizeable effect on the actual firm survival nor it had an impact on the outcome of privatization.