This paper explores the relationship between capital composition and productivity using a unique and highly detailed data set on …rm-level investment in the U.S. We develop a succinct methodology for modeling the separate e¤ects of a large number of capital types in a production function framework. We then use this methodology, combined with recently developed techniques for accounting for unob...

The evidence that earnings rise with firm size and that human capital affects earnings based on labour market data are two of the most robust empirical findings in economics. In contrast the evidence for scale economies in firm data is very weak. The limited direct evidence of human capital on firm productivity suggests that human capital is indeed productive and that the magnitudes are consist...

This paper analyses the differential impact of human capital, in terms of different levels of schooling, on regional productivity and convergence. The potential existence of geographical spillovers of human capital is also considered by applying spatial panel data techniques. The empirical analysis of Spanish provinces between 1980 and 2007 confirms the positive impact of human capital on regio...

The paper analyzes how social barriers to communication affect economy-wide productivity and factor accumulation. Using a dynamic model of an economy that includes a reproducible capital stock (physical or human) and effective labor, a negative relationship is shown to exist between social barriers to communication and total factor productivity (TFP), per capita consumption and reproducible cap...

This work attempts to shed light on the “information technology productivity paradox”. Employing a large data set of Italian manufacturing firms we compute ICT marginal productivity across different cluster of firms and the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on output growth. Following Yorukoglu’s (1998) vintage capital idea, in which ICT is associated with consistent lear...

The labour productivity differentials between manufacturing firms in Ghana and South Korea exceed those implied by macro analysis. Median value-added per employee is nearly 40 times higher in South Korea than Ghana. The most important single factor in explaining this difference is the Mincerian return to skills which differ by a factor of three between Ghana and South Korea. There is no signifi...

In this paper, I develop a regression-based system of labor productivity equations which account for capital-embodied technological change and I incorporate this system into IDLIFT, a structural, macroeconomic input-output model of the U.S. economy. Builders of regressionbased forecasting models have long had difficulty finding labor productivity equations that exhibit the “Solowian” property t...

We introduce capital accumulation into an economy where individuals have private information with respect to productivity shocks. Efficient, incentive-compatible risk-sharing is achieved by conditioning current and future payoffs on the history of productivity reports. We develop a notion of efficiency, similar to that of Atkeson and Lucas (1992). The capital stock in the economy is endogenous ...

T he early 1970s witnessed dramatic change in per-capita output and labor-productivity growth rates in the United States. These growth rates averaged 2.2 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively, for the 1950–1969 period compared to 1.3 percent and 0.8 percent for the 1970–1989 period. Aschauer (1989) advances the idea that an important explanatory factor in this productivity slowdown is the gover...

The endogenous approach to regional development policy has become central over the last decade. By employing the conditional frontier approach, this paper investigates the relative contribution to labour productivity growth of: (1) capital accumulation, (2) exogenous technical change and efficiency, and (3) endogenous technological capabilities – i.e. innovation capability and human capital. We...