Misallocation Measures: The Distortion that Ate the Residual
Misallocation Measures: The Distortion that Ate the Residual
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错配措施：吞噬剩余的扭曲
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.3347179
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Syverson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
J. Haltiwanger;Robert B. Kulick;C. Syverson
近年来出现了大量关于错配和生产率的文献，其中 Hsieh 和 Klenow（2009；以下简称 HK）作为其标准实证框架。该框架的实用性和理论基础使其成为分析不当分配的宝贵起点。然而，我们表明这种方法对模型错误指定很敏感。该模型从观察到的生产行为到错配楔子/扭曲的映射在单一理论情况下成立，需求和供应双方都需要严格假设。我们证明，当与这些假设存在任何偏差时，应用香港方法将意味着从数据中恢复的“扭曲”可能并不是效率低下的迹象。相反，它们可能只是反映了需求变化或公司沿着边际成本曲线的变动，很可能是朝着盈利的方向。那么，该框架可能不仅会错误地识别效率低下的地方，而且还会错误地识别出效率低下的地方。它可能更有可能在某些根本性方面比竞争对手更好地为企业做到这一点。我们数据中的实证测试使我们能够将价格和数量分开，从而直接测试模型的假设，表明该框架的必要条件不成立。然后，我们扩展了 HK 框架，以允许更一般的需求和供给结构来量化框架和数据之间的差异。我们发现存在很大的偏差，特别是在需求方面。使用从我们的扩展框架中得出的分解，我们发现基于收入的 TFP（香港扭曲的衡量标准）的大部分变化反映了需求变化的影响，无论是直接的还是通过与这些变化相关的扭曲。我们进一步表明，在一般条件下，基于收入的全要素生产率的方差不足以统计因分配不当而造成的效率损失。
A large literature on misallocation and productivity has arisen in recent years, with Hsieh and Klenow (2009; hereafter HK) as its standard empirical framework. The framework’s usefulness and theoretical founding make it a valuable starting point for analyzing misallocations. However, we show this approach is sensitive to model misspecification. The model’s mapping from observed production behaviors to misallocative wedges/distortions holds in a single theoretical case, with strict assumptions required on both the demand and supply sides. We demonstrate that applying the HK methodology when there is any deviation from these assumptions will mean “distortions” recovered from the data may not be signs of inefficiency. Rather, they may simply reflect demand shifts or movements of the firm along its marginal cost curve, quite possibly in profitable directions. The framework may then not just spuriously identify inefficiencies; it might be more likely to do so precisely for businesses better in some fundamental way than their competitors. Empirical tests in our data, which allow us to separate price and quantity and as such directly test the model’s assumptions, suggest the framework’s necessary conditions do not hold. We then extend the HK framework to allow for more general demand and supply structures to quantify the discrepancy between the framework and the data. We find substantial deviations, particularly on the demand side. Using a decomposition derived from our extended framework, we find that much of the variation in revenue-based TFP (the measure of distortions in HK) reflects the influence of demand shifts, either directly or through distortions correlated with those shifts. We furthermore show that under general conditions, the variance of revenue-based TFP is not a sufficient statistic for efficiency losses due to misallocation.