Chapter 10.
Productivity Measures: Business Sector and Major
Subsectors
Technical
References
Bureau of Labor StatisticsGrowth, 1948-90,
Bulletin 2426, December 1993.
Changes in the educational attainment and experience of
the workforce are measured and their impact on
multifactor productivity are measured.
Labor Composition and U.S. Productivity
Productivity: A Selected Annotated Bibliography
1983-1987, Bulletin 2360, 1990.
Recent references concerning productivity and
productivity measurement. Each reference includes a brief
annotation.
The Impact of Research and Development of
Productivity Growth, Bulletin 2331, 1989.
Presents annual measures of the stock of research and
development and its contribution to productivity growth
in the nonfarm business sector. The data cover 1948 to
1987.
Trends in Multifactor Productivity, 1948-81,
Bulletin 2178, 1983.
Presents BLS annual indexes of multifactor productivity
for private business, private nonfarm business, and
manufacturing for the period 1948 through 1981. Also
presents BLS annual measures of output per unit of
capital services input for the three sectors.
Dean, Edwin; Harper, Michael; and Otto, Phyllis Flohr,
"Improvements to the quarterly productivity
measures," Monthly Labor Review, October
1995.
Summarizes the impact of switching from fixed-weighted to
annual-weighted output on the labor productivity
measures.
Gullickson, William, "Measurement of productivity
growth in U.S. manufacturing," Monthly Labor
Review, July 1995.
Updates multifactor (KLEMS) productivity measures for
each 2-digit SIC. Contains a discussion of alternative
manufacturing output measures and their use in
productivity measurement.
Jablonski, Mary; Kunze, Kent; and Otto, Phyllis Flohr,
"Hours at Work: A New Base for BLS Productivity
Statistics," Monthly Labor Review, February
1990.
A description of the methodology used to develop measures
of the ratio of hours at work to hours paid for the
period 1948 to the present by linking the Hours at Work
survey to early periodic surveys and unpublished data
sources.
Harper, Michael J.; Berndt, Ernst R.; and Wood, David
O. "Rates of Return and Capital Aggregation Using
Alternative Rental Prices," in D.W. Jorgenson and R.
London, Technology and Capital Formation, MIT
Press, 1989.
Examines the theoretical rationale for and empirical
implementation of rental price formulas for use in
weighting capital assets for multifactor productivity
measurement.
Hulten, Charles R.; Robertson, James W.; and Wykoff,
Frank C. "Energy, Obsolescence, and the Productivity
Slowdown," in D.W. Jorgenson and R. London, Technology
and Capital Formation, MIT Press, 1989.
An empirical examination of the hypothesis that high
energy prices contributed to the post-1973 productivity
slowdown by inducing capital obsolescence.
Dean, Edwin; Kunze, Kent; and Rosenblum, Larry.
"Productivity Change and the Measurement of
Heterogeneous Labor Inputs," prepared for Conference
on New Measurement Procedures for U.S. Agricultural
Productivity, March 1989.
Changes in the education and experience distribution of
the workforce (based on a new model) show a modest
contribution to productivity growth (0.2 percent
annually) and very little explanation of the productivity
slowdown.
Harper, Michael J. and Gullickson, William. "Cost
Function Models and Accounting for Growth in U.S.
Manufacturing, 1949-86," prepared for the National
Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute, 1989.
The effects of factor substitution induced by relative
price changes on labor productivity are assessed using an
econometric cost function model.
Powers, Susan G. "The Role of Capital Discards in
Multifactor Productivity Measurement," Monthly
Labor Review, June 1988.
Current measures of capital stocks do not reflect a
firm's choice of when to discard capital. Capital stocks
based on variations in capital discards over the business
cycle are constructed. It is shown that multifactor
productivity measures using these stocks do not
significantly differ from the current productivity
measures.
Dean, Edwin R. and Kunze, Kent. "United States
Multifactor Productivity Growth, 1948-86," Monthly
Labor Review, May 1988.
Presents growth rates of multifactor productivity for the
periods 1948-73, 1973-79, and 1979-86 for private
business, nonfarm business, and manufacturing. Analyzes
trends in multifactor measures and describes data
revisions and methodological improvements that have been
incorporated into these measures.
Gillickson, William and Harper, Michael J.
"Multifactor Productivity in 20 U.S. Manufacturing
Industries, 1949-83," Monthly Labor Review,
October 1987. Presents multifactor productivity measures
for 20 manufacturing industries and for total
manufacturing, based on annual measures of output and
inputs of capital, labor, energy, materials, and
purchased business services. Analyzes multifactor growth
rates in manufacturing industries.
Fulco, L. J. "U.S. Productivity Growth Since
1982: The Post-Recession Experience," Monthly
Labor Review, December 1986.
A review of developments in major sectors of the economy
focusing on the first 14 quarters of the recovery phase
of the business cycle. Contrasts experience during the
recovery which began in the fourth quarter of 1982 with
all previous post-World War II cycles.
Mark, Jerome A. "Problems Encountered in
Measuring Single-Factor and Multifactor
Productivity," Monthly Labor Review, December
1986.
Development of new data sources, better use of existing
sources, and broader coverage are some of the ways in
which BLS has improved its productivity measures;
progress has been made, but inadequacies remain.
Sveikauskas, Leo. "The Contribution of R&D to
Productivity Growth," Monthly Labor Review,
March 1986.
Results of a BLS study suggest that the direct
contribution of research and development to post-War
productivity growth was between 0.1 and 0.2 percent
annually in the nonfarm business sector; R&D had no
substantial effect on the post-1973 productivity
slowdown.
Kunze, Kent. "A New BLS Survey Measures the Ratio
of Hours Worked to Hours Paid," Monthly Labor
Review, June 1984.
Hours at work accounted for about 93 percent of hours
paid for production and nonsupervisory workers in 1982,
according to an annual survey which includes only the
time required to be on the job site, thereby excluding
paid holidays, sick leave, and vacations.
Mark, Jerome A. and Waldorf, William H.
"Multifactor Productivity: A New BLS Measure," Monthly
Labor Review, December 1983.
Annual indexes for private business show that advances in
multifactor productivity account for most of the growth
of output per hour of all persons during 1948-81.
Harper, Michael J. "The Measurement of Productive
Capital Stock, Capital Wealth and Capital Services,"
BLS Working Paper No. 128, 1982.
Analysis of the computation of capital depreciation for
productivity measurement.
Other publications
Baily, Martin Neil and Gordon, Robert J.
"Measurement Issues, the Productivity Slowdown, and
the Explosion of Computer Power," Brookings
Papers on Economic Activity. Washington, DC, The
Brookings Institution, 1989.
Jorgenson, Dale; Gollop, Frank; and Fraumeni, Barbara.
Productivity and U.S. Economic Growth, Cambridge,
MA, The Harvard University Press, 1987.
Denison, Edward F. Trends in American Economic
Growth, 1929-1982. The Brookings Institution,
Washington, DC, 1985.
Caves, Douglas W.; Christensen, Laurits R.; and
Diewert, W. Erwin. "The Economic Theory of Index
Numbers and the Measurement of Input, Output, and
Productivity," Econometrica, Vol. 50, No. 6,
1983, pp. 1393-1414.
Kendrick, John W. and Vaccara, Beatrice N., editors. New
Developments in Productivity Measurement and Analysis.
Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Usher, Dan, ed. The Measurement of Capital.
Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1980.
National Research Council's Panel to Review
Productivity Statistics. Measurement and
Interpretation of Productivity. Washington, DC, The
National Academy of Sciences, 1979.
Christensen, Laurits and Jorgenson, Dale. "The
Measurement of U.S. Real Capital Input, 1929-67," Review
of Income and Wealth, December 1969.
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