Growth Accounting with Misallocation: Or, Doing Less with More in Singapore

53 Pages Posted: 7 Jun 2010 Last revised: 4 May 2023

See all articles by John G. Fernald

John G. Fernald

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Brent Neiman

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: June 2010

Abstract

We derive aggregate growth-accounting implications for a two-sector economy with heterogeneous capital subsidies and monopoly power. In this economy, measures of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in terms of quantities (the primal) and real factor prices (the dual) can diverge from each other as well as from true technology growth. These distortions potentially give rise to dynamic reallocation effects that imply that change in technology needs to be measured from the bottom up rather than the top down. We show an example, for Singapore, of how incomplete data can be used to obtain estimates of aggregate and sectoral technology growth as well as reallocation effects. We also apply our framework to reconcile divergent TFP estimates in Singapore and to resolve other empirical puzzles regarding Asian development.

Suggested Citation

Fernald, John G. and Neiman, Brent, Growth Accounting with Misallocation: Or, Doing Less with More in Singapore (June 2010). NBER Working Paper No. w16043, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1620720

John G. Fernald (Contact Author)

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco ( email )

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San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
415-974-2135 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.frbsf.org/economics/economists/jfernald.html

Brent Neiman

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

HOME PAGE: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/brent.neiman/index.html

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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