IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-00598033.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Production factor returns : the role of factor utilisation

Author

Listed:
  • Gilbert Cette

    (Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France, DEFI - Centre de recherche en développement économique et finance internationale - GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Nicolas Dromel

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Rémy Lecat

    (Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France)

  • Anne-Charlotte Paret

    (Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France, ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique)

Abstract

Short-term increasing returns to production factors are usually found in empirical studies. We argue they can be due to omitted variables, particularly the intensity of factor utilisation. Thanks to original French firm-level data (1992-2008), we show how increasing returns to scale disappear when working time, capacity utilisation rate and mainly capital operating time are introduced in the production function

Suggested Citation

  • Gilbert Cette & Nicolas Dromel & Rémy Lecat & Anne-Charlotte Paret, 2011. "Production factor returns : the role of factor utilisation," Post-Print halshs-00598033, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00598033
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00598033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00598033/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shapiro, Matthew D, 1993. "Cyclical Productivity and the Workweek of Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 229-233, May.
    2. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Lyons, Richard K., 1992. "External effects in U.S. procyclical productivity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 209-225, April.
    3. D. W. Jorgenson & Z. Griliches, 1967. "The Explanation of Productivity Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 34(3), pages 249-283.
    4. Nadiri, M Ishaq & Rosen, Sherwin, 1969. "Interrelated Factor Demand Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(4), pages 457-471, Part I Se.
    5. Oulton, Nicholas, 1996. "Increasing Returns and Externalities in UK Manufacturing: Myth or Reality?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 99-113, March.
    6. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G, 1997. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 249-283, April.
    7. N. J. Ireland & D. J. Smyth, 1970. "The Specification of Short-Run Employment Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(2), pages 281-285.
    8. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-417, June.
    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. Cette Gilbert & Lecat Rémy & Ahmed Jiddou Ahmed Ould, 2016. "How do firms adjust production factors to the cycle?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 361-394, June.
    2. Alex Clymo, 2019. "Dispersion Over the Business Cycle: Productivity versus Demand," 2019 Meeting Papers 1125, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. V. Bignon & F. Boissay & C. Cahn & L.-M. Harpedanne de Belleville, 2016. "Extended eligibility of credit claims for Eurosystem refinancing Consequences for the supply of credit to companies," Quarterly selection of articles - Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 43, pages 15-23, Autumn.
    4. James Harrigan & Ariell Reshef & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity," NBER Working Papers 25295, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gilbert Cette & Rémy Lecat & Carole Ly-Marin, 2017. "Long-term growth and productivity projections in advanced countries," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2016(1), pages 71-90.
    6. A. Berthou, 2016. "Current account adjustments and productivity dynamics in Europe during the crisis," Quarterly selection of articles - Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 43, pages 59-70, Autumn.
    7. Francesco Daveri & Rémy Lecat & Maria Laura Parisi, 2016. "Service Deregulation, Competition, and the Performance of French and Italian Firms," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(3), pages 278-302, July.
    8. Gilbert Cette & Nicolas Dromel & Rémy Lecat, 2013. "Labour Relations Quality and Productivity: An Empirical Analysis on French Firms," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 4(2).
    9. Valérie Chouard & Laurent Baudry & Agnès Minier & Roxanne Tabouret & Sylvie Tarrieu, 2018. "Productive capital operating times increased sharply in 2017 – findings of the Banque de France survey [La durée d’utilisation des équipements progresse fortement en 2017 – Résultats de l’enquête m," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 216.
    10. C. Guette-Khiter, 2016. "Non-resident holdings of French CAC 40 companies at end-2015," Quarterly selection of articles - Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 43, pages 35-46, Autumn.
    11. Françoise Delmez & Vincent Vandenberghe, 2017. "Working long hours: less productive but less costly? Firm-level evidence from Belgium," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2017022, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    12. Yamaguchi, Rintaro, 2020. "Available capital, utilized capital, and shadow prices in inclusive wealth accounting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    13. Shengyu Liu & Heng Yin, 2017. "A Structural Method to Estimate Firm-level Capacity Utilization and Application to Chinese Heavy Industries," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 18(1), pages 1-28, May.
    14. J. Morenas & B. Rudelle, 2016. "Money and its counterparts in France and in the euro area," Quarterly selection of articles - Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 43, pages 25-34, Autumn.
    15. Sandra NEVOUX & Loriane PY & Laurent BAUDRY & Souny HARTWEG & Agnès MINIER & Sylvie TARRIEU, 2019. "Productive capital operating times continued to increase in 2018 - Findings of the annual Banque de France survey [La durée d’utilisation des équipements continue de progresser en 2018. Résultats d," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 222.
    16. R. Cezar, 2016. "France’s trade integration measured in value added," Quarterly selection of articles - Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 43, pages 47-58, Autumn.
    17. V. Grossmann-Wirth & M. Vari, 2016. "Exiting low interest rates in a situation of excess liquidity: the experience of the Fed," Quarterly selection of articles - Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 43, pages 5-14, Autumn.
    18. Chouard, V. & Minier, A. & Tarrieu, S. & Baudry, L. & Soual, A., 2015. "La progression modérée de la durée d’utilisation des équipements se poursuit en 2014 - Résultats de l’enquête menée par la Banque de France," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 199, pages 43-52.
    19. Paul Bouche & Gilbert Cette & Rémy Lecat, 2021. "News from the Frontier: Increased Productivity Dispersion across Firms and Factor Reallocation," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 12(2).

    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. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 1995. "Capital Utilization and Returns to Scale," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 67-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Wilson, Daniel J., 2000. "Estimating Returns to Scale: Lo, Still No Balance," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 285-314, April.
    3. Susanto Basu & Miles S. Kimball, 1997. "Cyclical Productivity with Unobserved Input Variation," NBER Working Papers 5915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jaimovich, Nir & Floetotto, Max, 2008. "Firm dynamics, markup variations, and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1238-1252, October.
    5. Nuria Quella, 2006. "Intra- and Inter-sectoral Knowledge Spillovers and TFP Growth Rates," 2006 Meeting Papers 431, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Wen, Yi, 1998. "Capacity Utilization under Increasing Returns to Scale," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 7-36, July.
    7. Lindström, Tomas, 1999. "External Economies at the Firm Level: Evidence from Swedish Manufacturing," Working Paper Series 89, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    8. Andreas Pfingsten & Reiner Wolff, 2009. "Factor Supply Changes in Small Open Economies: Rybczynski Derivatives under Increasing Marginal Costs," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 9-20, Spring.
    9. Stephen McKnight & Laura Povoledo, 2022. "Endogenous fluctuations and international business cycles," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 312-348, February.
    10. Mark Weder, 2006. "A heliocentric journey into Germany's Great Depression," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 288-316, April.
    11. Martin Biewen & Constantin Weiser, 2014. "An empirical test of marginal productivity theory," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 996-1020, March.
    12. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    13. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G. & Shapiro, Matthew D., 2001. "Productivity growth in the 1990s: technology, utilization, or adjustment?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 117-165, December.
    14. Swanson Eric T, 2006. "The Relative Price and Relative Productivity Channels for Aggregate Fluctuations," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-39, October.
    15. Dale W. Jorgenson & Mun S. Ho & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2005. "Growth of US Industries and Investments in Information Technology and Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Capital in the New Economy, pages 403-478, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Luc Everaert & Francisco Simone, 2007. "Improving the estimation of total factor productivity growth: capital operating time in a latent variable approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 449-468, November.
    17. Kim, Daisoon, 2021. "Economies of scale and international business cycles," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    18. Huang, Kevin X.D. & Meng, Qinglai, 2012. "Increasing returns and unsynchronized wage adjustment in sunspot models of the business cycle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 284-309.
    19. Jürgen Bitzer & Erkan Gören, 2016. "Measuring capital services by energy use: an empirical comparative study," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(53), pages 5152-5167, November.
    20. Sakellaris, Plutarchos, 2004. "Patterns of plant adjustment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 425-450, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Production function; productivity; factor returns.; Fonction de production; productivité; rendement d'échelle.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:hal:journl:halshs-00598033. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.