Total Factor Productivity Revisited: A Dual Approach to Development Accounting

This paper tackles a number of issues that are central to cross-country comparisons of productivity. We develop a “dual” method to compare levels of total factor productivity (TFP) across nations that relies on factor price data rather than the data on stocks of factors required by standard “primal” estimates. Consistent with the development accounting literature based on primal estimates, we find that TFP accounts for the bulk of differences in income per worker across countries. However, we also find that there are significant differences between TFP series calculated using the two different approaches. We trace the reason for this divergence to inconsistencies between the data on user costs of capital and physical stocks of capital. In addition, we establish that the standard Cobb-Douglas methodology of assuming a constant capital share of one-third for all countries is a very good approximation to a more general formulation under which countries have different aggregate production functions which do not require a constant elasticity of substitution between factors.TFP; development accounting; dual approach; Cobb-Douglas hypothesis

Accounting for Productivity: Is it OK to Assume that the World is Cobb-Douglas?

The development accounting literature almost always assumes a Cobb-Douglas (CD) production function. However, if in reality the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor deviates substantially from 1, the assumption is invalid, potentially casting doubt on the commonly held view that factors of production are relatively unimportant in accounting for differences in labor productivity. We use international data on relative factor shares and capital-output ratios to formulate a number of tests for the validity of the CD assumption. We find that the CD specification performs reasonably well for the purposes of cross-country productivity accounting.

The Macroeconomic Management of Increased Aid: Policy Lessons from Recent Experience

This paper investigates the macroeconomic challenges created by a surge in aid inflows. It develops an analytical framework for examining possible policy responses to increased aid, in terms of absorption and spending of aid?where the central bank controls absorption through monetary policy and the sale of foreign exchange and the fiscal authority controls spending. Different combinations of absorption and spending lead to different macroeconomic consequences. Evidence from five countries that recently experienced an aid surge (Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda) shows no support for aid-related real exchange rate appreciation in these countries, but indicates that the fear of Dutch disease played an important part in the policy reaction to aid surges. Fiscal and monetary authorities should coordinate their responses to an aid surge, because an uncoordinated response?typically when fiscal authority wants to spend aid while the central bank wants to avoid exchange rate appreciation?can have serious negative macroeconomic consequences.aid, exchange rate, aid absorption, policy

Does Macro-Pru Leak? Evidence from a UK Policy Experiment

The regulation of bank capital as a means of smoothing the credit cycle is a central element of forthcoming macro-prudential regimes internationally. For such regulation to be effective in controlling the aggregate supply of credit it must be the case that: (i) changes in capital requirements affect loan supply by regulated banks, and (ii) unregulated substitute sources of credit are unable to offset changes in credit supply by affected banks. This paper examines micro evidence—lacking to date—on both questions, using a unique dataset. In the UK, regulators have imposed time-varying, bank-specific minimum capital requirements since Basel I. It is found that regulated banks (UK-owned banks and resident foreign subsidiaries) reduce lending in response to tighter capital requirements. But unregulated banks (resident foreign branches) increase lending in response to tighter capital requirements on a relevant reference group of regulated banks. This “leakage” is substantial, amounting to about one-third of the initial impulse from the regulatory change.

A Strategy for Resolving Europe\u27s Problem Loans

This discussion note uses a new survey of European country authorities and banks to examine the structural obstacles that discourage banks from addressing their problem loans. A three pillared strategy is advocated to remedy the situation, comprising: (i) tightened supervisory policies, (ii) insolvency reforms, and (iii) the development of distressed debt market

How did the crisis in international funding markets affect bank lending? Balance sheet evidence from the United Kingdom

Evidence abounds on the propagation of financial stresses originating in the US mortgage market to banking systems worldwide through international funding markets. But the transmission of this external funding shock to the real economy via bank lending is surprisingly underexamined, given the central importance ascribed to this channel of contagion by policymakers. This paper provides evidence of this transmission for the UK-resident banking system, the largest in the world by asset size. It uses a novel data set, created from detailed and confidential balance sheet data reported by individual banks quarterly to the Bank of England. I find that the shock to foreign funding caused a substantial pullback in domestic lending. The results are derived using a range of instruments to correct for endogeneity and omitted variable bias. Foreign subsidiaries and branches reduced lending by a larger amount than domestically owned banks, while the latter calibrated the reduction in domestic lending more closely to the size of the funding shock.Liquidity shock; transmission mechanism; bank lending; instrumental variables.

The Human Capital Constraint: Of Increasing Returns, Education Choice and Coordination Failure

If technological innovations in the North can be costlessly imitated by educated workers in the South, and if education decisions are endogenous, why aren't all countries well-educated and rich? This paper explores a possible answer: if technologically advanced sectors, operating under increasing returns to scale, need a minimum pool of educated workers to commence production, then coordination failure can arise in the choice of education. A simple two-sector model is shown to yield multiple equilibria: countries that perform well educationally and adopt technology successfully can co-exist with countries that fail in both endeavors.