IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v5y1998i8p491-495.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productivity, private and public capital, and real wage in the US

Author

Listed:
  • S. J. Erenburg

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between real wages and productivity in the United States from 1948-90, by including in the measure of productivity the impact of public capital as well as private capital. The results confirm recent studies that have indicated that when the private and public capital stock is controlled for, real wage is countercyclical, and validate diminishing returns to labour, positive returns to public capital and a procyclical effect of capacity utilization on real wage. Further, the issue of spurious regression bias that arises when variables are nonstationary was addressed, and long run relationships were then estimated. Results establish a long-run relationship between productivity, real wage, the employment to capital ratio, and public to private capital ratio. Using the statistical estimates herein, if the public capital stock had remained at the historical 1948-65 ratio, rather than declining, productivity would have been between 2.4 and 2.9 percentage points higher and real wages would have been between 2 to 2.8 percentage points higher, ceteris paribus.

Suggested Citation

  • S. J. Erenburg, 1998. "Productivity, private and public capital, and real wage in the US," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(8), pages 491-495.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:5:y:1998:i:8:p:491-495
    DOI: 10.1080/135048598354410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/135048598354410&magic=repec&7C&7C8674ECAB8BB840C6AD35DC6213A474B5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/135048598354410?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John A. Tatom, 1991. "Public capital and private sector performance," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 3-15.
    2. Sharon J. Erenburg, 1993. "The Relationship Between Public and Private Investment," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_85, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Nadiri, M Ishaq & Mamuneas, Theofanis P, 1994. "The Effects of Public Infrastructure and R&D Capital on the Cost Structure and Performance of U.S. Manufacturing Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 22-37, February.
    4. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "A Simple MLE of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," NBER Technical Working Papers 0083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Pedro R. D. Bom & Jenny Ligthart, 2008. "How Productive is Public Capital? A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2206, CESifo.
    2. Saten Kumar & Don J. Webber & Geoff Perry, 2012. "Real wages, inflation and labour productivity in Australia," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(23), pages 2945-2954, August.
    3. Nurliyana Mohd Basri & Zulkefly Abdul Karim & Noorasiah Sulaiman, 2020. "The Effects of Factors of Production Shocks on Labor Productivity: New Evidence Using Panel VAR Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-23, October.
    4. Pedro R.D. Bom & Jenny E. Ligthart, 2009. "How Productive is Public Capital? A Meta-Regression Analysis," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0912, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    5. Pedro R.D. Bom & Jenny E. Ligthart, 2014. "What Have We Learned From Three Decades Of Research On The Productivity Of Public Capital?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 889-916, December.
    6. Arto Kovanen, 2019. "Wage Growth Puzzle and Capacity Utilization," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(2), pages 15-31, March.
    7. Chaido Dritsaki, 2016. "Real wages, inflation, and labor productivity: Evidences from Bulgaria and Romania," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 4(5), pages 24-36, October.

    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. Erenburg, S. J. & Wohar, Mark E., 1995. "Public and private investment: Are there causal linkages?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-30.
    2. Silvia Bertarelli, 2006. "Public capital and growth," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 361-398.
    3. Nigel Spence & Antonis Rovolis, 2002. "Duality theory and cost function analysis in a regional context: the impact of public infrastructure capital in the Greek regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 36(1), pages 55-78.
    4. Dorothée Boccanfuso & Marcelin Joanis & Mathieu Paquet & Luc Savard, 2015. "Impact de productivité des infrastructures: Une application au Québec," Cahiers de recherche 15-06, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    5. James Brox & Christina Fader, 2005. "Infrastructure investment and Canadian manufacturing productivity," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1247-1256.
    6. Alfredo M. Pereira & Jorge M. Andraz, 2013. "On The Economic Effects Of Public Infrastructure Investment: A Survey Of The International Evidence," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 1-37, December.
    7. David H. Good & M. Ishaq Nadiri & Robin C. Sickles, 1996. "Index Number and Factor Demand Approaches to the Estimation of Productivity," NBER Working Papers 5790, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Marie-Ange VEGANZONES-VAROUDAKIS, 2000. "Infrastructures, investissement et croissance : un bilan de dix années de recherches," Working Papers 200007, CERDI.
    9. Pereira, Alfredo M. & de Frutos, Rafael Flores, 1999. "Public Capital Accumulation and Private Sector Performance," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 300-322, September.
    10. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2020. "Economic Growth, Public and Private Investment: A Comparative Study of China and the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, March.
    11. Wei Zou & Fen Zhang & Ziyin Zhuang & Hairong Song, 2008. "Transport Infrastructure, Growth, and Poverty Alleviation: Empirical Analysis of China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 9(2), pages 345-371, November.
    12. Macdonald, Ryan, 2008. "An Examination of Public Capital's Role in Production," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2008050e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    13. Georg Erber, 1995. "Public Infrastructure, Productivity and Competitiveness: Analysis of Relative Differences and Impacts with Regard to U.S. and German Industries," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 115, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Sharon J. Erenburg, 1993. "Productivity, Private and Public Capital, and Real Wage in the United States, 1948-1990," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_94, Levy Economics Institute.
    15. Dorothée Boccanfuso & Marcelin Joanis & Mathieu Paquet & Luc Savard, 2015. "The impact of infrastructure on productivity: new estimates for Québec," Cahiers de recherche Classification-JEL: C13, , Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    16. Torstein Bye & Alexandra Katz, 1995. "Returns to Publicly Owned Transport Infrastructure Investment . A Cost Function/Cost Share Approach for Norway, 1971-1991," Discussion Papers 154, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    17. William F. Fox & Sanela Porca, 2001. "Investing in Rural Infrastructure," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 24(1), pages 103-133, January.
    18. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Lovely, Mary E., 1996. "Scale economies, returns to variety, and the productivity of public infrastructure," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 105-123, April.
    19. G. Duggal, Vijaya & Saltzman, Cynthia & Klein, Lawrence R., 1999. "Infrastructure and productivity: a nonlinear approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 47-74, September.
    20. Mika Kortelainen & Simo Leppänen, 2013. "Public and private capital productivity in Russia: a non-parametric investigation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 193-216, August.

    More about this item

    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:taf:apeclt:v:5:y:1998:i:8:p:491-495. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.