Public capital in the 21st century: as productive as ever?

The global financial crisis and the euro area sovereign debt crisis that followed induced a rapid deterioration in the fiscal positions of countries across the globe. In the ensuing fiscal adjustment process, public investments were severely reduced in many countries. How harmful is this for growth perspectives? Our main objective is to find out whether the importance of public capital for long run output growth has changed in recent years. To this end, we expand time series on public capital stocks for 20 OECD countries and estimate country-specific recursive vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Results show that the effect of public capital shocks on economic growth has not increased in general, although results differ widely between countries. This suggests that the current level of public investments generally does not pose an immediate threat to potential output. Of course, this could change if low investment levels are sustained for a long time.     

Potential output growth in several industrialised countries a comparison

In this paper, we present international comparisons of potential output growth among several economies—Canada, the euro area, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States—for the period 1991–2004, for which we construct consistent and homogenous capital stock series. The main estimates rely on a structural approach where output of the whole economy is described by a Cobb–Douglas function and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is estimated allowing for possible breaks in the deterministic trend. The results confirm that over the considered period the potential gross domestic product growth has been faster in the United States than in other studied countries, reflecting a combination of higher labour contribution and faster TFP growth. Overall, this paper might help to shed some light on cross-country differences in economic performance over the recent period.     

Is Public Capital Productive in China? Evidence from a Panel of Chinese Provinces

In addition to the direct productivity effect, public capital also has an indirect effect on private capital stock and labor input. This paper offers an evaluation of both the direct and indirect effects of Chinese public capital by applying a trans-log aggregate production function including public capital stock to a panel of regional data from 1986–2009. Moreover, we calculate the impact of public capital on regional total factor productivity (TFP) performance by introducing a system GMM estimation. The results show that the output elasticity of Chinese public capital stock is significantly positive, but decreasing year on year, and public capital is found to be a substitute for labor but complementary to private capital input. Finally, public capital has a significant positive effect on regional TFP performance.     

Output Growth Decomposition in the Presence of Input Quality Effects: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

How do physical capital accumulation and total factor productivity (TFP) individually add to economic growth? We approach this question from the perspective of the quality of physical capital and labor, namely the age of physical capital and human capital. We build a unique dataset by explicitly calculating the age of physical capital for each country and each year of our time frame and estimate a stochastic frontier production function incorporating input quality in five regions of countries (Africa, East Asia, Latin America, South Asia and West). Physical capital accumulation generally proves much more important than either the improved quality of factors or TFP growth in explaining output growth. The age of capital decreases growth in all regions except in Africa, while human capital increases growth in all regions except in East Asia.     

Capital services estimates in Portuguese industries, 1977–2003

This paper presents capital services estimates for 26 Portuguese industries for the 1977–2003 period. The estimation procedure follows an integrated approach under which the flows of capital services are approximated as a proportion of the capital stock converted into standard efficiency units. Our findings suggest a close proximity between the evolution of capital flows and the observed fluctuations of Portuguese macroeconomic growth. TFP growth estimates based on growth accounting reveal, furthermore, a very disappointing performance of the Portuguese economy during the period under study, with an average annual rate of TFP growth of 0.8% being observed. Performance varies across industries, but the bulk of activities show very modest rates of TFP growth.     

How fast can China grow? The Middle Kingdom's prospects to 2030

Given its size and importance for global commodity markets, the question of how fast China can grow over the medium term is an important one. Using a Cobb–Douglas production function, we decompose the growth of trend GDP into those of the capital stock, labour, human capital and total factor productivity (TFP) and then forecast trend output growth out to 2030 using a bottom‐up approach based on forecasts that we build for each one of these factors. Our paper distinguishes itself from existing work in that we construct a forecast of Chinese TFP growth based on the aggregation of forecasts of its key determinants. In addition, our analysis is based on a carefully constructed estimate of the Chinese productive capital stock and a measure of human capital (based on Chinese wage survey data) that better reflects the returns to education in China. Our results suggest that Chinese GDP growth will slow from around 7% currently to approximately 5% by 2030, consistent with a gradual rebalancing of the Chinese economy characterized by a decline in the investment rate. Moreover, our findings underscore the growing importance of TFP growth as a driver of Chinese growth.     

Embodiment, productivity, and the age distribution of capital

An important theme in modern research on productivity has been that technological progress may be embodied in capital in the sense that traditional measures of TFP growth reflect unmeasured improvements in the quality of capital inputs as well as pure disembodied technological progress. It is commonly believed that an implication of this embodiment hypothesis is that there should be a negative relationship between measured TFP and the age of the measured capital stock. This paper presents empirical evidence which suggests that an increase in the age of the capital stock is actually associated with higher TFP growth. This surprising result may be due to the presence of a mis-measurement normally overlooked in this literature: With mis-measured improvements in capital quality, the usual depreciation rates used to construct empirical capital stocks are incorrect for growth accounting. This effect dominates the usual average age effect.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITAL STOCK, UNEMPLOYMENT AND WAGES IN NINE EMU COUNTRIES

The focus of this paper is to investigate the importance of the capital stock in the determination of wages and unemployment in a range of EMU countries and to compare the results across countries. A time‐series analysis is conducted in the case of nine euro area countries, which were selected solely on the basis of data availability and consistency: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. The paper begins with a short review of the literature on capital stock and unemployment, before it deals with the theoretical model. This is followed by estimation and testing of the theoretical model put forward, using both time‐series and panel data. The results are supportive of the main hypothesis of the paper: capital stock is an important determinant of unemployment and wages in the countries considered for the purposes of the paper.     

人力资本与经济增长:对中国的实证分析

本文利用北卡罗来那大学Chapel Hill分校和中国预防医学会营养与食品卫生研究所的调查数据，估计出1990年～2000年我国的工资方程和人力资本增长率。结合该时期经济增长，资本存量和劳动投入数据，我估算出中国20世纪90年代的全要素生产率，以及各因素对经济增长的贡献。此外，本文还详细讨论了统计年鉴中产出、资本和劳动数据存在的问题，在对以往的研究进行详细比较的基础上选择了适当的纠正方法。     

Improving the estimation of total factor productivity growth: capital operating time in a latent variable approach

Measuring labor and capital services accurately is essential to obtaining reliable estimates of production functions and total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Using data on the operating time of capital, a series that exists for the French business sector, greatly improves the measurement of effective capital services in production. The ensuing estimation results are consistent with Cobb–Douglas technology under constant returns to scale, with the factor elasticities not statistically different from their income shares. In the same framework, TFP growth is estimated as a latent variable and found to be less volatile than accounting residuals, negatively correlated with employment, and free of cyclicality. It is statistically best estimated as a first-order autoregressive process, with an autoregressive coefficient of 0.95. Total factor productivity growth was estimated to have declined steadily between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, but the rate of decline has diminished since then.     

Evidence of public capital spillovers and endogenous growth in Taiwan

This study reaffirms the empirical evidence of public capital spillovers and endogenous growth by using data for the period 1966Q3–2012Q3 in Taiwan. Avoiding the use of a 100% depreciation rate for generating public and private capital stock series that is applied in some related studies, this study estimates these series by using disaggregate data of various investment assets and applying their individual depreciation rates, as calculated by Jorgenson and Stiroh (2000). The results show that, first, (per capita) output, private capital stock, and public capital stock cointegrated in the sample period. Second, the contribution of private capital to output is 50% higher than that of public capital. Third, in the presence of significant and sizeable public capital spillover effects, growth in Taiwan is strictly endogenous. Finally, the dynamic model with a cointegration equation helps in studying some sensible short-run properties of the model and bi-directional effects among variables.     

What determines productivity performance of telecommunications services industry? A cross-country analysis

This article investigates the key factors that determine the productivity performance of telecommunications services industry. A simple theoretical model is used to illustrate that the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth is attributable to the effects of scale economies, market competition and technical change. We then examine empirically the effect of various factors on the TFP growth in the industry using panel data in 12 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1983 through 2003. The empirical results are consistent with the theoretical prediction. A new finding in this article is that higher machinery and equipment (M&E) capital intensity and human capital contribute to higher TFP growth in the telecommunications services industry. The decomposition analysis also suggests that technical change induced by changes in M&E capital intensity and human capital are important sources of productivity performance in the industry across the OECD countries, contributing to about 20–50% and 2–7% of TFP growth, respectively. These findings highlight the importance of improving the conditions for M&E capital investment and the quality of human capital, which in turn could facilitate the adoption of new technologies and enhance the productivity in the industry.     

Factor analysis of demand growth for information technology input in Japan

The purpose of this article is to decompose demand changes for factor input and explore the factor that information technology (IT) capital stock has largely increased in Japan. The Allen partial elasticities of substitution are calculated and the variations in factor input demand are broken down into two effects—price effect and output effect, using industry-level data. From an estimation of the total cost function, the following conclusions are presented. While IT capital stock and ordinary capital stock are complementary, IT serves as a substitute for labor. The factors influencing the high growth rate in IT capital stock are the decrease in the prices of IT and ordinary capital services, and the increase in the labor price, in addition to the output effect. On the other hand, labor demand declines due to both the downward rigidity of wages and the decrease in prices of two kinds of capital services.     

FDI、人力资本与我国技术水平提升——基于DEA与VAR的实证分析

本文在运用数据包络分析(DEA)测算我国1983—2007年全要素生产率的变动情况的基础上,使用基于VAR的Granger因果检验、脉冲响应函数等方法研究外商直接投资(FDI)、人力资本存量与全要素生产率变动之间的动态关系。结果表明:FDI与人力资本存量的提高显著提升了我国全要素生产率水平;FDI与人力资本存量之间存在互为因果关系,且人力资本对FDI的促进作用更强。基于此,本文认为促进人力资本积累、提升技术吸收消化能力,对于引进外资和推动技术进步意义重大。     

China’s catch-up to the US economy: decomposing TFP through investment-specific technology and human capital

We implement a neoclassical growth model that incorporates investment-specific technology (IST) modifying capital investment in the law of motion of capital and bifurcates productivity into human capital and total factor productivity (TFP) in the production function. We focus on the role of changes in the quality-adjusted price of investment goods on China’s growth by comparing the effects of IST and human capital on the decomposition of US and Chinese productivity. The results show that both human capital and IST play an important role in the decomposition of US TFP. For China, human capital accounts for an increasingly higher portion of Chinese TFP for the period 1952–2009; however, IST contributes to the explanation of TFP only after the 1979 reforms. The analysis is extended by considering the impact of IST in the consumer’s investment decision and by projecting both countries’ GDP while modelling unbalanced Chinese growth using catch-up. Our model predicts that the Chinese economy will surpass the US economy in 2024.     

Financial market development,global financial crisis and economic growth: evidence from developing nations

Emerging and frontier markets in Africa have witnessed various economic and financial reforms aimed at integrating the domestic markets into the global financial market to attract investment. Whether these reforms promote high economic growth remains inconclusive. The paper applies the pooled mean group estimation technique to empirically re-investigate the link between financial market development, global financial crisis, and economic growth in selected African economies. The results strongly support our hypotheses that stock market and banking sector development promotes economic growth in the selected countries. Moreover, financial crisis reduce the positive effects of both the stock market and banking sector developments on economic growth. The study suggests that both the banking sector and stock market are important to deliver the long-run economic growth that the African region desired. Moreover, effort should be made to enact policy measures that would ensure development of the stock market which has received inadequate attention.     

Economic Growth, TFP Convergence and the World Export of Ideas: A Century of Evidence

This paper examines the effect of international patent stock on total factor productivity for 16 OECD countries over the past 120 years. The results show that the international patent stock is highly influential for economic growth and, together with knowledge spillovers through the channel of imports, has contributed significantly to TFP growth and σ‐convergence among the OECD countries over the past 120 years.     

Capital Market Openness and Output Volatility

In this paper, using data from 21 advanced and 81 developing countries during 1971–2010, we empirically examine the impact of capital market openness on output volatility. We find that opening of capital markets increases the output volatility of developing countries. Furthermore, we find that the main channel through which capital market openness increases volatility is currency and external‐debt crisis. Finally, we find that while Asian countries are less likely to experience a crisis, they become even more unstable than other developing countries once a crisis occurs. Our evidence strengthens the case for caution in developing countries' opening up of their capital markets.     

Business Cycle Accounting for Peripheral European Economies

Using the Business Cycle Accounting methodology, this paper analyzes the dynamics of the EMU‐periphery economies before and during what was called the sovereign debt crisis. TFP dynamics and the labor wedge explain most of the dynamics before and during the crisis. The bond wedge, corresponding to the risk premium, made a low contribution, moving counter‐cyclically. The capital wedge made a modest contribution to the fall in output during the crisis. Additional evidence links the dynamics of the TFP and the labor wedge with changes in the interest rates and a spike in import prices at the onset of the crisis, corresponding to the general mechanisms of the large capital inflows, in the wake of the introduction of the Euro, followed by sudden stops.     

服务进口与我国全要素生产率的增长——基于VAR模型的实证研究

服务进口贸易对我国全要素生产率的增长有多大的促进作用事关我国经济增长方式的转变。实证研究结果表明,1985-2010年,服务进口贸易与我国全要素生产率的变化之间有显著的正相关关系,服务进口增长1%,全要素生产率就有0.12%的提升。基于VAR模型的脉冲响应函数分析和预测方差分解分析结果,尽管国内RD资本存量对全要素生产率的长期拉动效应更为显著,但服务进口的积极作用也不可忽视。