IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/ecoaaa/698-en.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Employment-Productivity Trade-off and Labour Composition

Author

Listed:
  • Hervé Boulhol

    (OECD)

  • Laure Turner

    (OECD)

Abstract

This paper formalises the analysis of the employment-productivity trade-off by extending the framework developed by Gordon (1997) to account for labour heterogeneity. The extent of the trade-off is determined by the extent of the adjustment of capital to effective labour and by the changes in aggregate labour quality. The main experiment reported in the paper consists of assessing the labour utilisation and productivity impacts in OECD countries of aligning group-specific employment rates to the US levels. Matching the US employment performance defined in that sense would enable low-employment OECD countries to reduce only half of the aggregate employment-rate gap vis-à-vis the United States, the other half being mechanically due to differences in the population structure by age and educational attainment. In this experiment, a 1% gain in employment is associated with a decrease of 0.24% in labour productivity on average across countries, and of 0.35% in low-employment countries. Compromis emploi - productivité et effets de composition Cette étude formalise l’analyse du compromis entre emploi et productivité en étendant le cadre développé par Gordon (1997) pour prendre en compte l’hétérogénéité de la main-d’oeuvre. L’ampleur de ce compromis est déterminée par l’étendue de l’ajustement du capital à la main-d’oeuvre effective et par les changements dans la qualité de la main-d’oeuvre. La principale expérience rapportée dans l’étude consiste en l’évaluation de l’impact sur l’utilisation de la main-d’oeuvre et sur la productivité du travail de l’alignement, pour chaque pays de l’OCDE, des taux d’emplois par groupe de population sur ceux des États-Unis. Répliquant la performance des États-Unis ainsi définie permettrait aux pays de l’OCDE ayant un faible niveau d’emplois de réduire seulement la moitié de l’écart de taux d’emploi agrégé vis-à-vis des États-Unis, l’autre moitié étant due mécaniquement à la structure de la population par âge et niveau d’éducation. Dans cette expérience, des gains de 1% en termes d’emplois sont associés à une baisse de 0.24% de la productivité du travail en moyenne pour les pays de l’OCDE et de 0.35% pour les pays ayant les niveaux d’emplois les plus bas.

Suggested Citation

  • Hervé Boulhol & Laure Turner, 2009. "Employment-Productivity Trade-off and Labour Composition," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 698, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:698-en
    DOI: 10.1787/224146182015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1787/224146182015
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1787/224146182015?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Lindh & Bo Malmberg, 1999. "Age structure effects and growth in the OECD, 1950-1990," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(3), pages 431-449.
    2. Beaudry, Paul & Collard, Fabrice, 2001. "The Employment-Productivity Tradeoff around the 1980s : A Case for Medium Run Theory," IDEI Working Papers 137, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised 2003.
    3. repec:dgr:rugggd:200578 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. McGuckin, Robert & Ark, Bart van, 2005. "Productivity and participation: an international comparison," GGDC Research Memorandum 200578, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    5. Venetia Bell & Pablo Burriel-Llombart & Jerry Jones, 2005. "A quality-adjusted labour input series for the United Kingdom (1975-2002)," Bank of England working papers 280, Bank of England.
    6. Paul Cavelaars, 2005. "Has the Tradeoff Between Productivity Gains and Job Growth Disappeared?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 45-64, February.
    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. Clément Bosquet & Michel Fouquin, 2008. "Productivité du travail : la fin du processus de convergence ?," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 419(1), pages 125-142.
    2. Øivind A. Nilsen & Arvid Raknerud & Marina Rybalka & Terje Skjerpen, 2011. "The Importance Of Skill Measurement For Growth Accounting," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 57(2), pages 293-305, June.
    3. Renaud Bourlès & Gilbert Cette & Anastasia Cozarenco, 2012. "Employment and Productivity: Disentangling Employment Structure and Qualification Effects," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 23, pages 44-54, Spring.
    4. Michel Dumont & Chantal Kegels, 2016. "Working Paper 06-16 - Young Firms and Industry Dynamics in Belgium," Working Papers 1606, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    5. Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja), 2013. "Is there a Trade-off between Employment and Productivity?," IZA Discussion Papers 7717, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Alain de Serres & Naomitsu Yashiro & Hervé Boulhol, 2014. "An international perspective on the New Zealand productivity paradox," Working Papers 2014/01, New Zealand Productivity Commission.
    7. Jianmin Tang, 2015. "Employment and Productivity: Exploring the Trade-off," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 28, pages 63-80, Spring.

    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. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Fabrice Comptour, 2010. "Do clusters generate greater innovation and growth? An analysis of European regions," Working Papers 2010-15, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    2. McNamara, Paul E. & Ulimwengu, John M. & Leonard, Kenneth L., 2010. "Do health investments improve agricultural productivity? Lessons from agricultural household and health research," IFPRI discussion papers 1012, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Florian Noseleit, 2020. "The Role of Entry and Market Selection for the Dynamics of Regional Diversity and Specialization," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 76-94, July.
    4. Ilmakunnas, Pekka & Miyakoshi, Tatsuyoshi, 2013. "What are the drivers of TFP in the Aging Economy? Aging labor and ICT capital," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 201-211.
    5. Francesco Venturini, 2009. "The long-run impact of ICT," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 497-515, December.
    6. Peter Huber & Doris Oberdabernig & Jesús Crespo Cuaresma & Anna Raggl, 2015. "Migration in an Ageing Europe: What are the Challenges? WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 79," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 57886.
    7. Prskawetz, A. & Kogel, T. & Sanderson, W.C. & Scherbov, S., 2007. "The effects of age structure on economic growth: An application of probabilistic forecasting to India," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 587-602.
    8. Rainer Kotschy & David E. Bloom & Andrew J. Scott & Rainer Franz Kotschy, 2024. "On the Limits of Chronological Age," CESifo Working Paper Series 11451, CESifo.
    9. Feng Liu & Kangning Xu & Meina Zheng, 2018. "The Effect of Environmental Regulation on Employment in China: Empirical Research Based on Individual-Level Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-23, July.
    10. Stephan Brunow & Georg Hirte, 2009. "The age pattern of human capital and regional productivity: A spatial econometric study on german regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(4), pages 799-823, November.
    11. Hippolyte d’ALBIS & Dalal MOOSA, 2015. "Generational Economics and the National Transfer Accounts," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 409-441, December.
    12. Wen-Hsin Huang & Yen-Ju Lin & Hsien-Feng Lee, 2019. "Impact of Population and Workforce Aging on Economic Growth: Case Study of Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-13, November.
    13. Gehringer, Agnieszka & Prettner, Klaus, 2019. "Longevity And Technological Change," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 1471-1503, June.
    14. Kogel, Tomas, 2005. "Youth dependency and total factor productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 147-173, February.
    15. Mauro Giorgio Marrano & Jonathan Haskel & Gavin Wallis, 2009. "What Happened To The Knowledge Economy? Ict, Intangible Investment, And Britain'S Productivity Record Revisited," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(3), pages 686-716, September.
    16. Nicholas Crafts, 2021. "The Sources Of British Economic Growth Since The Industrial Revolution: Not The Same Old Story," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 697-709, July.
    17. Misbah Tanveer Choudhry & Enrico Marelli & Marcello Signorelli, 2016. "Age dependency and labour productivity divergence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(50), pages 4823-4845, October.
    18. David, DE LA CROIX & Bo, MALMBERG, 2006. "Growth and Longevity from the Industrial Revolution to the Future of an Aging Society," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006037, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    19. Federico Ciliberto & Amalia R. Miller & Helena Skyt Nielsen & Marianne Simonsen, 2016. "Playing The Fertility Game At Work: An Equilibrium Model Of Peer Effects," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(3), pages 827-856, August.
    20. Oulton, Nicholas, 2012. "Long term implications of the ICT revolution: Applying the lessons of growth theory and growth accounting," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1722-1736.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    aggregate employment; demographics; démographie; emploi agrégé; labour productivity; productivité du travail; quality of labour; qualité de l'emploi;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:oec:ecoaaa:698-en. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edoecfr.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.