Empirical Estimation of the Elasticity of Substitution : A Review

This review of time series and cross-sectional studies indicates that there is little agreement as to the "true" value of the elasticity of substitution. There appears to be no clear-cut explanation for the diversity of the estimates. Not only do the various studies attribute widely different absolute levels to the elasticity of substitution in the industries considered, but there is also no apparent consistency between the ordinal rankings of the industries within each study. There is however a general pattern of differences between the cross-sectional and time series estimates -- namely, the former are usually larger (averaging about 1) than the latter (averaging perhaps about 0.5). Please note: The PDF download of this fairly old paper is an optical scan.Capital, labour, elasticity of substitution

Factor productivity and income inequality: a general equilibrium analysis

Economic growth over the past two decades has failed to reduce income inequality. We contend that major reasons for this are the slowdown and bias in technological change (productivity growth). Given the complexity of the many interactions that take place, this phenomenon is best addressed in a general equilibrium context. For this purpose, we have developed a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with advanced features relating to income distribution. We perform a series of simulations based on recent overall productivity changes, but under various forms of technological change bias, factor mobility, and government budgetary balance. We find the labour-augmenting technological change cases to be most consistent with recent experience.