Market Distortion, Inter-Provincial Factor Misallocation, and Total Factor Productivity

As an emerging economy, market distortions exist in China’s institutional adjustment during its economy transformation. However, the price distortion of capital and labor factors will lead to factor misallocation among provinces. This will eventually reduce the total factor productivity (TFP) at the national level. Based on Hsieh and Klenow’s [1] model framework, this paper aims to measure the degree of misallocation of capital and labor factors among provinces, and estimates the growth potential of China’s TFP by using input-output data from 1993 to 2017. The findings show that: First, the degree of inter-provincial labor misallocation is greater than that of capital. For example, in 2017, the degree of capital (labor) misallocation was 5.77% (10.25%), resulting in China’s TFP loss of 17.23%. Second, due to the factor marketization reforms, the degree of labor misallocation has declined while the degree of capital misallocation has intensified in recent years. Lastly, this paper introduces the time-varying elasticity production function model, finding that using the Cobb-Douglas production function will cause the factor misallocation to be underestimated by 5.91% due to the assumption of constant output elasticity.

The TFP Channel of Credit Supply Shocks

Recent work stresses a potentially important relation between credit supply shocks and aggregate TFP based on factor misallocation. I take three steps to examine this relation. First, using state-of-the-art credit supply shock and aggregate TFP measures, I show that an adverse credit supply shock has a weak and very short-lived effect on aggregate TFP. Second, using firm-level data, I show that firm-level capital stock responses to an adverse credit supply shock produce an insignificant and negligible capital-misallocation-induced TFP response. Third, using employment data by fine firm size category classification, I also find a negligible labor-misallocation-induced TFP response. These findings suggest that the TFP channel of credit supply shocks has a limited role in their transmission to the real economy.

Environmental Regulation, Resource Misallocation and Industrial Total Factor Productivity: A Spatial Empirical Study Based on China’s Provincial Panel Data

A vast theoretical and empirical literature has been devoted to exploring the relationship between environmental regulation and total factor productivity (TFP), but no consensus has been reached and the reason may be attributed to the fact that the resource reallocation effect of environmental regulation is ignored. In this paper, we introduce resource misallocation in the process of discussing the impact of environmental regulation on TFP, taking China’s provincial industrial panel data from 1997 to 2017 as a sample, and the spatial econometric method is employed to investigate whether environmental regulation has a resource reallocation effect and affects TFP. The results indicate that there is a U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and industrial TFP and a negative spatial spillover effect of environmental regulation on industrial TFP at the provincial level in China. Both capital misallocation and labor misallocation will lead to the loss of industrial TFP. Capital misallocation has a negative spatial spillover effect on industrial TFP, while labor misallocation is just the opposite. Environmental regulation can produce a positive resource reallocation effect, which in turn promotes the industrial TFP in the range of 28% to 33%, while capital misallocation and labor misallocation are only partial mediator.

Aggregate Dynamics in Lumpy Economies

How does an economy's capital respond to aggregate productivity shocks when firms make lumpy investments? We show that capital's transitional dynamics are structurally linked to two steady‐state moments: the dispersion of capital to productivity ratios—an indicator of capital misallocation—and the covariance of capital to productivity ratios with the time elapsed since their last adjustment—an indicator of asymmetric costs of upsizing and downsizing the capital stock. We compute these two sufficient statistics using data on the size and frequency of investment of Chilean plants. The empirical values indicate significant effects of aggregate productivity shocks and favor investment models with a strong downsizing rigidity and random opportunities for free adjustments.

Asymmetries in the euro area and TFP growth: evidence from three major European economies

PurposeIn this paper, the authors study the long-run determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) in three major European economies over the period 1983–2017, namely Germany, France and Italy.Design/methodology/approachThe authors focus on the capital misallocation effects, scale effects and labor misallocation effects. To this end, the authors study how real interest rate shocks, real exchange rate shocks, real wage shocks and changes in labor regulation affected TFP in major European countries over the last decades. The authors employ a theoretical and an empirical model to investigate the issue. The empirical results are obtained using a VAR model for estimation.FindingsA stripped-down model of labor market in open economy with technology progress allows to identify the relevant variables affecting TFP. On the empirical ground, the authors find a positive relationship between TFP and real interest rate in the long run. Importantly, the authors detect a positive relationship between TFP and real exchange rate. Further, the authors show that the TFP can respond positively to a stricter labor market regulation and to a higher real compensation per employee. The results provide support to the idea that TFP has a positive relation with prices in the long run, while it may be biased along the cycle because of price rigidity.Research limitations/implicationsThe present model is stylized and may not capture all of the details of reality. The analysis should be extended to a larger number of countries. Technology progress could be proxied using different variables, as the R&D expenditure or the number of patents. Micro data, for specific sectors and industries, can improve the quality of the empirical investigation.Practical implicationsMainly the authors find that TFP has a positive relationship with price changes in the long run, while it may be biased along the cycle because of price stickiness. Capital misallocation and labor misallocation can negatively affect TFP. Thus, the observed divergences in European TFP can be traced back to the misallocation effects attributable to the decrease of real interest rate and real wages, together with the raising labor flexibility. Mainly, the authors detect a positive long-run relationship between TFP and real exchange rate. This outcome strengthens the supply-side view of the relationship between productivity and real exchange rate.Social implicationsThe authors believe that the present setup can be helpful to reflect critically on the nodes at the core of the productivity slowdown and asymmetries in the eurozone. The aim is to implement renewed policies in order to favor economic growth, convergence and stability in the euro area.Originality/valueThis research addresses the issue of asymmetries among European economies by focusing on the role played by real prices in the long run. Traditionally, the dynamics of TFP have been attributed only to technological components, human capital and knowledge. This work shows that the dynamics of prices such as the real interest rate, the real exchange rate and the real wage can also influence the technological process by pushing the production system toward choices that are not always optimal for economic growth. An interesting result of this research concerns the positive relationship between real exchange rates and TFP in the long term, evidence of an important supply-side effect on the technological process.