IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/1185.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Allocative efficiency and the productivity slowdown

Author

Listed:
  • Lin Shao
  • Rongsheng Tang

Abstract

This paper evaluates the contribution of cross-sector allocative efficiency to the productivity slowdown in the US during the 1970s and 2000s. We extend the framework of Oberfield (2013) to derive sufficient statistics for allocative efficiency and decompose aggregate productivity growth in a multi-sector economy with or without input-output linkages. We find approximately two-thirds of the productivity slowdown can be explained by the lack of improvement in allocative efficiency. Furthermore, data shows that increased sector-level volatility is associated with the deterioration of allocative efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin Shao & Rongsheng Tang, 2024. "Allocative efficiency and the productivity slowdown," BIS Working Papers 1185, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1185.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1185.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enghin Atalay, 2017. "How Important Are Sectoral Shocks?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 254-280, October.
    2. David M. Byrne & John G. Fernald & Marshall B. Reinsdorf, 2016. "Does the United States Have a Productivity Slowdown or a Measurement Problem?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 109-182.
    3. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andrew Foerster & Andreas Hornstein & Pierre-Daniel G. Sarte & Mark W. Watson, 2019. "Aggregate Implications of Changing Sectoral Trends," Working Paper 19-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    2. Aum, Sangmin & Lee, Sang Yoon (Tim) & Shin, Yongseok, 2018. "Computerizing industries and routinizing jobs: Explaining trends in aggregate productivity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-21.
    3. Florentine Schwark & Andreas Tryphonides, 2022. "Digitalization and Resilience to Disaggregate Shocks," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 08-2022, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    4. Andrew T. Foerster & Andreas Hornstein & Pierre-Daniel G. Sarte & Mark W. Watson, 2022. "Aggregate Implications of Changing Sectoral Trends," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(12), pages 3286-3333.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & David Autor & Christina Patterson, 2024. "Bottlenecks: Sectoral Imbalances and the US Productivity Slowdown," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 153-207.
    6. Vasco M. Carvalho & Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, 2019. "Production Networks: A Primer," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 635-663, August.
    7. Julian di Giovanni & Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Alvaro Silva & Muhammed A Yildirim, "undated". "Pandemic-era Inflation Drivers and Global Spillovers," RBA Annual Conference Papers acp2023-01, Reserve Bank of Australia, revised Nov 2023.
    8. Elstner, Steffen & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2018. "The German productivity paradox: Facts and explanations," Ruhr Economic Papers 767, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    9. Molnárová, Zuzana & Reiter, Michael, 2022. "Technology, demand, and productivity: What an industry model tells us about business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Barry Eichengreen & Donghyun Park & Kwanho Shin, 2017. "The Global Productivity Slump: Common and Country-Specific Factors," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 16(3), pages 1-41, Fall.
    11. David Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2020. "Nonlinear Production Networks with an Application to the Covid-19 Crisis," NBER Working Papers 27281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. David Rezza Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2019. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Microeconomic Shocks: Beyond Hulten's Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1155-1203, July.
    13. Funke, Michael & Wende, Adrian, 2022. "Modeling semiconductor export restrictions and the US-China trade conflict," BOFIT Discussion Papers 13/2022, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    14. Altinoglu, Levent, 2021. "The origins of aggregate fluctuations in a credit network economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 316-334.
    15. Daniel A. Dias & Carlos Robalo Marques & Christine Richmond, 2020. "A Tale of Two Sectors: Why is Misallocation Higher in Services than in Manufacturing?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(2), pages 361-393, June.
    16. Mengheng Li & Ivan Mendieta‐Muñoz, 2020. "Are long‐run output growth rates falling?," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(1), pages 204-234, February.
    17. Sara Calligaris, 2015. "Misallocation and Total Factor Productivity in Italy: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," CEIS Research Paper 357, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 14 Oct 2015.
    18. David Rezza Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2018. "Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents and Input-Output Networks," NBER Working Papers 24684, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Marc Jim M. Mariano & George Verikios & Kenneth W. Clements, 2023. "Are Input-Output Coefficients Really Fixed?," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 23-06, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    20. Erik Frohm & Vanessa Gunnella, 2021. "Spillovers in global production networks," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 663-680, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    productivity slowdown; allocative efficiency; volatility; adjustment costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bis:biswps:1185. 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: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    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.