Productivity, Welfare and Reallocation: Theory and Firm-Level Evidence

48 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2016

See all articles by Susanto Basu

Susanto Basu

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Boston College, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics

Luigi Pascali

Boston College

Fabio Schiantarelli

Boston College - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Luis Servén

CEMFI

Multiple version iconThere are 4 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 1, 2010

Abstract

A considerable literature has focused on the determinants of total factor productivity (TFP), prompted by the empirical finding that TFP accounts for the bulk of long-term growth. This paper offers a deeper reason for such focus: the welfare of a representative consumer is summarized by current and anticipated future Solow productivity residuals. The equivalence holds for any specification of technology and market structure, as long as the representative household maximizes utility while taking prices parametrically. This result justifies total factor productivity as the right summary measure of welfare, even in situations where it does not properly measure technology, and makes it possible to calculate the contributions of disaggregated units (industries or firms) to aggregate welfare using readily available data. Based on this finding, the authors compute firm and industry contributions to welfare for a set of European countries (Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain) using industry-level and firm-level data. With additional assumptions about technology and market structure (specifically, that firms minimize costs and face common factor prices), the authors show that welfare change can be further decomposed into three components that reflect, respectively, technical change, aggregate distortions, and allocative efficiency. Then, using the appropriate firm-level data, they assess the importance of each of these components as sources of welfare improvement in the same set of European countries.

Keywords: Economic Theory & Research, E-Business, Economic Growth, Labor Policies, Technology Industry

Suggested Citation

Basu, Susanto and Basu, Susanto and Pascali, Luigi and Schiantarelli, Fabio and Servén, Luis, Productivity, Welfare and Reallocation: Theory and Firm-Level Evidence (March 1, 2010). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5226, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1565987

Susanto Basu (Contact Author)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Boston College, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics ( email )

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Luigi Pascali

Boston College ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

Fabio Schiantarelli

Boston College - Department of Economics ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States
617-552-4512 (Phone)
617-552-2308 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/a/bc.edu/fabio-schiantarelli/

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Luis Servén

CEMFI ( email )

Casado del Alisal 5
28014 Madrid
Spain

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