IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v16y2012i02p184-203_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Biased Technical Change, Intermediate Goods, And Total Factor Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Moro, Alessio

Abstract

In this paper I show that the intensity at which intermediate goods are used in the production process affects aggregate total factor productivity (TFP). To do this, I construct an input–output model economy in which firms produce gross output by means of a production function in capital, labor, and intermediate goods. This production function is subject, together with the standard neutral technical change, to intermediates-biased technical change. Positive (negative) intermediates-biased technical change implies a decline (increase) in the elasticity of gross output with respect to intermediate goods. In equilibrium, this elasticity appears as an explicit part of TFP in the value added aggregate production function. In particular, when the elasticity of gross output with respect to intermediates increases, aggregate TFP declines. I use the model to quantify the impact of intermediates-biased technical change for measured TFP growth in Italy. The exercise shows that intermediates-biased technical change can account for the productivity slowdown observed in Italy from 1994 to 2004.

Suggested Citation

  • Moro, Alessio, 2012. "Biased Technical Change, Intermediate Goods, And Total Factor Productivity," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 184-203, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:16:y:2012:i:02:p:184-203_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100510000532/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rui Castro & Gian Luca Clementi & Glenn Macdonald, 2009. "Legal Institutions, Sectoral Heterogeneity, and Economic Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 529-561.
    2. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 707-720, October.
    3. Nezih Guner & Gustavo Ventura & Xu Yi, 2008. "Macroeconomic Implications of Size-Dependent Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 721-744, October.
    4. Ricardo Lagos, 2006. "A Model of TFP," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 983-1007.
    5. Berthold Herrendorf & Arilton Teixeira, 2005. "How Barriers to International Trade Affect TFP," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 866-876, October.
    6. Edward C. Prescott & Stephen L. Parente, 1999. "Monopoly Rights: A Barrier to Riches," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1216-1233, December.
    7. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1996. "Imperfect Competition and the Effects of Energy Price Increases on Economic Activity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 550-577, November.
    8. Wolff, Edward N, 1996. "The Productivity Slowdown: The Culprit at Last? Follow-Up on Hulten and Wolff," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1239-1252, December.
    9. Michael Bruno, 1984. "Raw Materials, Profits, and the Productivity Slowdown," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(1), pages 1-29.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nikolay Chernyshev, 2018. "From Productivity Shifts to Economic Growth: Intersectoral Linkage as an Amplifying Factor," CDMA Working Paper Series 201801, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
    2. Yi-Ling Cheng & Juin-Jen Chang, 2017. "The Quality of Intermediate Goods: Growth and Welfare Implications," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(302), pages 434-447, September.
    3. Manoj Atolia & Ryan Chahrour, 2020. "Intersectoral Linkages, Diverse Information, and Aggregate Dynamics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 270-292, April.
    4. Cristiano Antonelli & Christophe Feder, 2020. "Total factor productivity, catch-up and technological congruence in Italy, 1861–2010," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 1171-1194, September.
    5. Po-Chi Chen & Ming-Miin Yu, 2014. "Total factor productivity growth and directions of technical change bias: evidence from 99 OECD and non-OECD countries," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 214(1), pages 143-165, March.
    6. Jan, Grobovsek, 2013. "Development Accounting Within Intermediate Goods," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-42, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    7. Caunedo, Julieta, 2020. "Aggregate fluctuations and the industry structure of the US economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    8. Manoj Atolia & Ryan Chahrour, 2020. "Intersectoral Linkages, Diverse Information, and Aggregate Dynamics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 270-292, April.
    9. Thomas Strobel, 2013. "Embodied Technology Diffusion and Sectoral Productivity Evidence for 12 OECD Countries," ifo Working Paper Series 156, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    10. Ryan Chahrour & Manoj Atolia, 2015. "Intersectoral Linkages, Diverse Information, and Aggregate Dynamics in a Neoclassical Model," 2015 Meeting Papers 398, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Jan Grobovsek, 2013. "Development Accounting with Intermediate Goods," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 223, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    12. Chen, Xi, 2017. "Biased Technical Change, Scale, And Factor Substitution In U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 488-514, March.
    13. Choudhry, Sonam, 2021. "Is India's formal manufacturing sector ‘hollowing out’- importance of intermediate input," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 533-547.
    14. Hiroaki HAYAKAWA, 2016. "Theory of the Firm: A Reformulation with Primary Factors of Production and Procurement of Ingredient Inputs," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 418-439, September.
    15. Grobovšek Jan, 2018. "Development accounting with intermediate goods," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-27, January.
    16. Julio Leal, 2018. "Key sectors in Mexico's economic development: a perspective from input-output linkages with sector-specific distortions," 2018 Meeting Papers 571, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bah, El-hadj & Fang, Lei, 2015. "Impact of the business environment on output and productivity in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 159-171.
    2. El-Hadj Bah & Lei Fang, 2015. "Working Paper - 219 - Impact of the business Environment on Output and Productivity in Africa," Working Paper Series 2159, African Development Bank.
    3. Charles I. Jones, 2011. "Misallocation, Economic Growth, and Input-Output Economics," NBER Working Papers 16742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2013. "Misallocation and productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, January.
    5. Florian Gerth, 2017. "Allocative efficiency of UK firms during the Great Recession," Studies in Economics 1714, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    6. Mr. Ashvin Ahuja, 2012. "De-Monopolization toward Long-Term Prosperity in China," IMF Working Papers 2012/075, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Da-Rocha, José-María & Restuccia, Diego & Tavares, Marina Mendes, 2019. "Firing costs, misallocation, and aggregate productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 60-81.
    8. Franz Hamann & Fernando Arias-Rodríguez & Jesus Bejarano & Margarita Gafaro & Juan C. Mendez-Vizcaino & Andrea Paola Poveda-Olarte, 2019. "Productividad total de los factores y eficiencia en el uso de los recursos productivos en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, issue 89, pages 1-54, February.
    9. Barseghyan, Levon & DiCecio, Riccardo, 2011. "Entry costs, industry structure, and cross-country income and TFP differences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 1828-1851, September.
    10. Neira, Julian, 2019. "Bankruptcy and cross-country differences in productivity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 359-381.
    11. Gaaitzen J. Vries, 2014. "Productivity in a Distorted Market: The Case of Brazil's Retail Sector," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 499-524, September.
    12. Eleftherios Giovanis & Oznur Ozdamar, 2018. "Productivity and Resource Misallocation: Evidence from Firms in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region Countries," Working Papers 1266, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Dec 2018.
    13. David Lagakos, 2009. "Superstores or mom and pops? Technolgy adoption and productivity differences in retail trade," Staff Report 428, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    14. Francisco J. Buera & Yongseok Shin, 2017. "Productivity Growth and Capital Flows: The Dynamics of Reforms," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 147-185, July.
    15. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2017. "The Causes and Costs of Misallocation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 151-174, Summer.
    16. Alpysbayeva, Dinara & Vanormelingen, Stijn, 2022. "Labor market rigidities and misallocation: Evidence from a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Nicolas Ziebarth, 2013. "Are China and India Backwards? Evidence from the 19th Century U.S. Census of Manufactures," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 86-99, January.
    18. Lopez-Martin, Bernabe & Perez-Reyna, David, 2021. "Contracts, firm dynamics, and aggregate productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    19. Francisco J. Buera & Joseph P. Kaboski & Yongseok Shin, 2011. "Finance and Development: A Tale of Two Sectors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1964-2002, August.
    20. Zhang, Shangfeng & Luo, Jiayu & Huang, Duen-Huang & Xu, Jingjue, 2023. "Market distortion, factor misallocation, and efficiency loss in manufacturing enterprises," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:16:y:2012:i:02:p:184-203_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.