IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gro/rugggd/gd-111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measurement error in cross-country productivity comparisons: Is more detailed data better?

Author

Listed:
  • Inklaar, R.
  • Timmer, M.

    (Groningen University)

Abstract

Relative productivity levels are used intensively in analyzing cross-country growth, but often based on crude measures and with little information on their reliability. In this paper, we provide a new framework to estimate purchasing power parities and productivity levels with associated standard errors using the country-product-dummy (CPD) method. For a set of OECD countries, we show that productivity levels in manufacturing industries are measured with sizeable error. We also show that cruder productivity measures are often poor proxies for the data-intensive measure presented here. This evidence can be used to deal with the problem of attenuation bias in cross-country regressions.

Suggested Citation

  • Inklaar, R. & Timmer, M., 2009. "Measurement error in cross-country productivity comparisons: Is more detailed data better?," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-111, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    • Handle: RePEc:gro:rugggd:gd-111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/31781009X
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caselli, Francesco & Wilson, Daniel J., 2004. "Importing technology," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-32, January.
    2. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2008. "Understanding International Price Differences Using Barcode Data," NBER Working Papers 14017, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Angel de la Fuente & Rafael Doménech, 2006. "Human Capital in Growth Regressions: How Much Difference Does Data Quality Make?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, March.
    4. Daniel Cohen & Marcelo Soto, 2007. "Growth and human capital: good data, good results," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 51-76, March.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2006. "Distance to Frontier, Selection, and Economic Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 37-74, March.
    6. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 2009. "The Economics of Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012634, December.
    7. Erwin Diewert, 2005. "Weighted Country Product Dummy Variable Regressions And Index Number Formulae," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(4), pages 561-570, December.
    8. W. Erwin Diewert, 2001. "Which (Old) Ideas on Productivity Measurement Are Ready to Use?," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 85-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    10. Charles R. Hulten & Edwin R. Dean & Michael J. Harper, 2001. "New Developments in Productivity Analysis," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hult01-1, February.
    11. Brambor, Thomas & Clark, William Roberts & Golder, Matt, 2006. "Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 63-82, January.
    12. Andrew B. Bernard & Charles I. Jones, 2001. "Comparing Apples to Oranges: Productivity Convergence and Measurement across Industries and Countries: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1168-1169, September.
    13. Bernard, Andrew B & Jones, Charles I, 1996. "Comparing Apples to Oranges: Productivity Convergence and Measurement across Industries and Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1216-1238, December.
    14. Baumol, William J, 1986. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-run Data Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1072-1085, December.
    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. López-Pueyo, Carmen & Mancebón, María-Jesús, 2010. "Innovation, accumulation and assimilation: Three sources of productivity growth in ICT industries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 268-285, March.
    2. Alison Stegman, 2011. "Sectoral Productivity, Structural Change and Convergence," CAMA Working Papers 2011-32, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

    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. repec:dgr:rugggd:gd-111 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2012. "Productivity Convergence Across Industries and Countries: The Importance of Theory-based Measurement," Chapters, in: Matilde Mas & Robert Stehrer (ed.), Industrial Productivity in Europe, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. repec:dgr:rugggd:gd-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:dgr:rugggd:gd-118 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Fulvio Castellacci & Bart Los & Gaaitzen Vries, 2014. "Sectoral productivity trends: convergence islands in oceans of non-convergence," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 983-1007, November.
    6. Vries, Gaaitzen J. de & Los, Bart & Castellacci, Fulvio, 2010. "Sectoral Productivity Trends:Convergence Islands in Oceans of Divergence," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-118, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    7. Ang, James B. & Madsen, Jakob B. & Rabiul Islam, Md., 2011. "The effects of human capital composition on technological convergence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 465-476, September.
    8. Silvia Dal Bianco, 2016. "Going clubbing in the eighties: convergence in manufacturing sectors at a glance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 623-659, March.
    9. Tobias Hagen & Philipp Mohl, 2011. "Econometric Evaluation of EU Cohesion Policy: A Survey," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume III, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Camilla Mastromarco & Léopold Simar, 2021. "Latent heterogeneity to evaluate the effect of human capital on world technology frontier," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 71-89, April.
    11. James B. Ang & Jakob B. Madsen, 2012. "Risk capital, private credit, and innovative production," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(4), pages 1608-1639, November.
    12. ?gel de la Fuente, "undated". "Convergence Across Countries And Regions: Theory And Empirics," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 447.00, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    13. Miketa, Asami & Mulder, Peter, 2005. "Energy productivity across developed and developing countries in 10 manufacturing sectors: Patterns of growth and convergence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 429-453, May.
    14. Michael S. Delgado & Daniel J. Henderson & Christopher F. Parmeter, 2014. "Does Education Matter for Economic Growth?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(3), pages 334-359, June.
    15. Daude, Christian, 2013. "Understanding Solow residuals in Latin America," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123222, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Scopelliti, Alessandro Diego, 2009. "Competition and Economic Growth: an Empirical Analysis for a Panel of 20 OECD Countries," MPRA Paper 20127, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Keiichi Kishi, 2015. "Dynamic analysis of wage inequality and creative destruction," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 1-23, May.
    18. Bena Jan & Ondko Peter & Vourvachaki Evangelia, 2011. "Productivity Gains from Services Liberalization in Europe," EERC Working Paper Series 11/15e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    19. Rosa Bernardini Papalia & Silvia Bertarelli, 2013. "Nonlinearities in economic growth and club convergence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1171-1202, June.
    20. Jérôme Vandenbussche & Philippe Aghion & Costas Meghir, 2006. "Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 97-127, June.
    21. Massimo Del Gatto & Adriana Di Liberto & Carmelo Petraglia, 2011. "Measuring Productivity," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 952-1008, December.
    22. Alberto BUCCI & Massimo FLORIO & Davide LA TORRE, 2009. "Transitional dynamics in a growth model with government spending, technological progress and population change," Departmental Working Papers 2009-38, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    23. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.

    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:gro:rugggd:gd-111. 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: Hanneke Tamling (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ferugnl.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.