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That elusive elasticity and the ubiquitous bias: is panel data a panacea?

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  • James Smith

Abstract

There is often assumed to be a unit elasticity of substitution between capital and labour. But estimates based on neoclassical capital demand equations frequently find a smaller value. Recent time-series work for the United States and Canada has suggested that, once the biases inherent in estimating cointegrating vectors are properly accounted for, the elasticity could indeed be close to 1. This paper investigates this possibility for the United Kingdom. First the analysis considers aggregate data where the estimated elasticity is close to 0.4. Then a unique industry-level data set for the United Kingdom is exploited in order to further pinpoint the estimated elasticity. Estimates using dynamic panel data methods are close to those from aggregate data, providing a robust statistical rejection of a unit elasticity in UK data.

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  • James Smith, 2008. "That elusive elasticity and the ubiquitous bias: is panel data a panacea?," Bank of England working papers 342, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:342
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    File URL: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2008/WP342.pdf
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    Cited by:

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    2. Antony, Jürgen, 2009. "A dual elasticity of substitution production function with an application to cross-country inequality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 10-12, January.
    3. Coulibaly Brahima & Millar Jonathan N., 2011. "The "Elusive" Capital-User Cost Elasticity Revisited," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-41, September.
    4. Chirinko, Robert S., 2008. "[sigma]: The long and short of it," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 671-686, June.
    5. Sebastian Gechert & Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Dominika Kolcunova, 2022. "Measuring Capital-Labor Substitution: The Importance of Method Choices and Publication Bias," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 55-82, July.
    6. Antony, Jürgen, 2009. "Capital/Labor substitution, capital deepening, and FDI," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 699-707, December.
    7. Sebastian Gechert & Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Dominika Kolcunova, 2019. "Death to the Cobb-Douglas Production Function," Working Papers IES 2019/26, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2019.
    8. Fatica, Serena, 2018. "Business capital accumulation and the user cost: Is there a heterogeneity bias?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 15-34.
    9. Gechert, Sebastian & Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Kolcunova, Dominika, 2019. "Death to the Cobb-Douglas Production Function? A Quantitative Survey of the Capital-Labor Substitution Elasticity," EconStor Preprints 203136, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Jane Gravelle, 2010. "Economic Effects of Investment Subsidies," Chapters, in: Iris Claus & Norman Gemmell & Michelle Harding & David White (ed.), Tax Reform in Open Economies, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Temple, Jonathan, 2012. "The calibration of CES production functions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 294-303.
    12. David Miles & Jing Yang & Gilberto Marcheggiano, 2013. "Optimal Bank Capital," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(567), pages 1-37, March.
    13. Luciano BOGGIO & Vincenzo DALL’AGLIO & Marco MAGNANI, 2010. "On Labour Shares in Recent Decades: A Survey," Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, vol. 118(3), pages 283-333.
    14. Edwards, T. Huw & Lücke, Matthias, 2021. "Decomposing the growth of the high-skilled wage premium in an advanced economy open to trade," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 766-784.
    15. Junge, Georg & Kugler, Peter, 2017. "Optimal equity capital requirements for Swiss G-SIBs," Working papers 2017/11, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    16. Sumera Anis & Abdul Rashid, 2017. "Optimal Bank Capital And Impact Of The Mm Theorem: A Study Of The Pakistani Financial Sector," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(02), pages 1-21, June.
    17. Nadja Dwenger, 2014. "User Cost Elasticity of Capital Revisited," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(321), pages 161-186, January.
    18. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Gechert, Sebastian & Kolcunova, Dominika, 2019. "Death to the Cobb-Douglas Production Function? A Meta-Analysis of the Capital-Labor Substitution Elasticity," MetaArXiv 6um5g, Center for Open Science.
    19. Franziska Piontek & Matthias Kalkuhl & Elmar Kriegler & Anselm Schultes & Marian Leimbach & Ottmar Edenhofer & Nico Bauer, 2019. "Economic Growth Effects of Alternative Climate Change Impact Channels in Economic Modeling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1357-1385, August.

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