Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T03:24:15.162Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Procyclical Behavior of Total Factor Productivity in the United States, 1890–2004

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2010

Alexander J. Field*
Affiliation:
Michel and Mary Orradre Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053. E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract

Between 1890 and 2004 total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the United States has been strongly procyclical, while labor productivity growth has been mildly so. This article argues that these results are not simply a statistical artifact, as Mathew Shapiro and others have argued. Procyclicality resulted principally from demand shocks interacting with capital services which are relatively invariant over the cycle. This account contrasts with explanations emphasizing labor hoarding as well as those offered by the real business cycle (RBC) program, in which TFP shocks (deviations from trend) are themselves the cause of cycles.

Type
ARTICLES
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abramovitz, Moses.“Resource and Output Trends in the United States since 1870.” American Economic Review 46, no. 2 (1956): 523.Google Scholar
Baier, Scott, Dwyer, Gerald, and Tamura, Robert. “How Important Are Capital and Total Factor Productivity for Economic Growth?” Economic Inquiry 44, no. 1 (2006): 2349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, Susanto, and Fernald, John. “Why is Productivity Procyclical? Why Do We Care?” Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Working Paper 2000-11, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernanke, Ben.“Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression.” American Economic Review 73, no. 3 (1983): 257–76.Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., et al., eds. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Millennial Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Cole, Harold L., and Ohanian, Lee. “The Great Depression in the United States from a Neoclassical Perspective.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 23 (Winter 1999): 224.Google Scholar
de Córdoba, Gonzalo Fernández, and Kehoe, Timothy J.. “The Current Financial Crisis: What Should We Learn from the Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century?” Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota. Research Department Staff Report 421, February 2009.Google Scholar
De Vroey, Michel R., and Pensieroso, Luca. “Real Business Cycle and the Great Depression: The Abandonment of the Abstentionist Viewpoint.” B. E. Journal of Macroeconomics 6, Article 13 (2006), available at http://bepress.com/ bejm/contributions/vol6/iss1/art13.Google Scholar
Eichengreen, Barry.Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Field, Alexander J.“Asset Exchanges and the Transactions Demand for Money, 1919–1929.” American Economic Review 74, no. 1 (1984): 4359.Google Scholar
Field, Alexander J.“On the Unimportance of Machinery.” Explorations in Economic History 22, no. 4 (1985): 378401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Alexander J.“Modern Business Enterprise as a Capital-Saving Innovation.” The Journal of Economic History 47, no. 2 (1987): 473–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Alexander J.“The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Century.” American Economic Review 93, no. 4 (2003): 13991413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Alexander J.“Technical Change and U.S. Productivity Growth: The Interwar Years.” The Journal of Economic History 66, no. 1 (2006): 203–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Alexander J.“The Impact of World War II on U.S. Productivity Growth.” Economic History Review 61, no. 3 (2008): 672–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Alexander J. “Should Capital Input Data Receive a Utilization Adjustment?” Working Paper, Santa Clara University, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Milton, and Schwartz, Anna J.. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Gordon, Robert J.“The ‘End-of-Expansion’ Phenomenon in Short-Run Productivity Behavior.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1979, no. 2 (1979): 447–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Robert J.“The Jobless Recovery: Does It Signal a New Era of Productivity-Led Growth?” Brookings Paper on Economic Activity 1993, no. 1 (1993): 271316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Robert J.“Exploding Productivity Growth: Context, Causes, and Implications.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2003, no. 2 (2003): 207–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Robert E.“The Relation Between Price and Marginal Cost in U.S. Industry.” The Journal of Political Economy 96, no. 5 (1988): 921–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Robert E., Feldstein, Martin, Frankel, Jeffrey, Gordon, Robert, Romer, Christina, Romer, David, and Zarnowitz, Victor. “The NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Procedures.” Available at http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.pdf. Document dated October 21, 2003; accessed March 8, 2007.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert.“Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s.” The Journal of Economic History 52, no. 1 (1992): 4160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hultgren, Thor. “Changes in Labor Cost during Cycles in Production and Business.” NBER Occasional Paper No. 74, Cambridge, MA, 1960.Google Scholar
Kaldor, Nicholas. “Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth,” In The Theory of Capital, edited by Lutz, F. A. and Hague, D. C., 177222. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kehoe, Timothy J., and Prescott, Edward, eds. Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century. Minneapolis: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kehoe, Timothy J., and Prescott, Edward, eds. “Using the General Equilibrium Growth Model to Study Great Depressions: A Reply to Temin.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department Staff Report 418, December 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendrick, John.Productivity Trends in the U.S. Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Kuh, Edwin.“Cyclical and Secular Labor Productivity in United States Manufacturing.” Review of Economics and Statistics. 47, no. 1 (1965): 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebergott, Stanley.Manpower in Economic Growth. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964.Google Scholar
Lucas, Robert E. Jr. “Methods and Problems in Business Cycle Theory.” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 13, no. 4 (1980): 696715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishkin, Frederick S. 1978.“The Household Balance Sheet and the Great Depression.” The Journal of Economic History 38, no. 4 (1978): 918–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New York Federal Reserve Bank. “Discount Rate.” Available at http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/statistics/dlyrates/fedrate.html, accessed December 14, 2009.Google Scholar
Ohanian, Lee. “What—or Who—Started the Great Depression?” NBER Working Paper No. 15258, Cambridge, MA, 2009.Google Scholar
Okun, Arthur M. “Potential GNP: Its Measurement and Significance.” in American Statistical Association, Proceedings of the Business and Economic Statistics Section, 98–104. Washington, DC: American Statistical Association, 1962.Google Scholar
Prescott, Edward.“Theory Ahead of Business Cycle Measurement.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 10 (Fall 1986): 922.Google Scholar
Rebelo, Sergio.“Real Business Cycle Models: Past, Present, and Future.” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 107, no. 2 (2005): 217–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, Christina.“Spurious Volatility in Historical Unemployment Data.” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 1 (1986): 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, Christina.“The Great Crash and the Onset of the Great Depression.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 105 (1990): 597624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Mathew.“Are Cyclical Fluctuations due More to Supply Shocks or Demand Shocks?” American Economic Review 77, no. 2 (1987): 118–24.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Mathew.“Cyclical Productivity and the Workweek of Capital.” American Economic Review 83, no. 2 (1993): 229–33.Google Scholar
Solow, Robert M.“Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function.” Review of Economics and Statistics 39, no. 3 (1957): 312–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. “Federal Funds Rate.” Available at http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/FEDFUNDS.txt, accessed October 24, 2009.Google Scholar
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. “Spot Oil Price, West Texas Intermediate.” Available at http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OILPRICE, accessed October 24, 2009.Google Scholar
Temin, Peter.Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? New York: Norton, 1976.Google Scholar
United States, Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Fixed Asset Table 2.1, Current-Cost Net Stock of Private Fixed Assets, Equipment and Software, and Structures by Type.” Available at http://www.bea.gov/national/FA2004, accessed June 22, 2009.Google Scholar
United States, Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Fixed Asset Table 6.8, Chain-Type Quantity Indexes for Investment in Private Fixed Assets by Industry Group and Legal Form of Organization.” Available at http://www.bea.gov/national/FA2004, accessed August 16, 2009.Google Scholar
United States, Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “NIPA Table 1.1.5, Gross Domestic Product.” Available at http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/Index.ASP, accessed October 25, 2009.Google Scholar
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Net Multifactor Productivity and Cost, 1948–2008, SIC 1948-87 linked to NAICS 1987–2008,” released May 6, 2009.Google Scholar
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment Status of the Civilian Noninstitutional Population, 1940 to Date.” available at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf, accessed on August 14, 2009.Google Scholar
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Consumer Price Index—Urban, Seasonally Adjusted, 1982–84 = 100.” Available at http://www.bls.gov/cpi, accessed October 24, 2009.Google Scholar
Weir, David.“The Reliability of Historical Macroeconomic Data for Comparing Cyclical Stability.” The Journal of Economic History 46, no. 2 (1986): 353–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, David.“A Century of U.S. Unemployment, 1890–1990.” Research in Economic History 14 (1992): 341–43. See also series Ba475 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics, Vol. 2.Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas, and Eckstein, Otto. “Short-Run Productivity Behavior in U.S. Manufacturing.” Review of Economics and Statistics 46, no. 1 (1964): 4154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodford, Michael.“Convergence in Macroeconomics: Elements of the New Synthesis.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 1, no. 1 (2009): 267–79.Google Scholar