The Productivity of Capital in a Period of Slower Growth
The Productivity of Capital in a Period of Slower Growth
复制标题
增长放缓时期的资本生产率
DOI：
10.2307/2534786
复制
发表时间：
1990
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Schultze
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Baily;C. Schultze
自1948年以来的40年里，美国在资本货物上的投资占其国民生产总值的比例比几乎任何一个主要的国际竞争对手都要小。在同一时期，美国的平均劳动生产率增长也是最慢的。在这一时期的头25年里，人们没有什么理由感到不满。美国的生产率增长高于战前，而欧洲的生产率仍然更高，这很容易被解释为一种追赶现象。但在1973年之后，美国的劳动生产率增长率下降到每年仅略高于1%，在过去五年中，净投资大幅下降。许多人认为，增加美国经济中的实物投资水平将在更高的生产率增长中获得巨大回报。我们同意应该增加投资，但我们怀疑潜在的生产率提高被夸大了。这个问题对经济分析和经济政策都很重要。如果增加资本存量带来的增长回报很大，经济政策可以集中在提高国民储蓄和投资上。如果回报很小，那么明智的做法是弯曲一些努力，转向其他提高生产率增长的手段。从经济分析的角度，我们想知道如何
THE UNITED STATES has invested a smaller fraction of its gross national product in capital goods than almost any of its major international competitors in the 40 years since 1948. Over this same period, average labor productivity growth in the United States has also been among the slowest. For the first 25 years of the period there was little cause for dissatisfaction. U.S. productivity growth was higher than it was in the prewar years, and the still higher rates in Europe could easily be explained as a catch-up phenomenon. But after 1973 U.S. labor productivity growth fell to only a little more than 1 percent a year, and in the past five years net investment has dropped substantially. Many people have argued that increasing the level of physical investment in the U.S. economy would have a large payout in higher productivity growth. We agree that investment should be increased, but we suspect that the potential productivity improvements are being exaggerated. The issue is important both for economic analysis and for economic policy. If the growth payoff from increasing the capital stock is large, economic policy can concentrate on raising national saving and investment. If the payoff is small, the nation would be wise to bend some of its efforts toward other means of improving productivity growth. From the perspective of economic analysis, we want to know how to