ABR: The Measurement of 20th Century U. S. Economic Growth

世纪，美国在世界范围内的经济增长速度加快。S.在中期期间，经济经历了多要素生产率（MFP）增长的急剧加速和减速。关于世纪初期的增长来源、1972年以后的生产率增长减速、1995年以后的生产率增长复苏等问题，许多假说都是从这种加速、减速、再加速的模式出发的。S.从世纪末开始。研究计划有两个独立的部分。(1)第二次世界大战前的标准MFP数据与战后政府官方数据不一致，没有根据投入质量的变化进行调整，需要进一步调整资本投入的计量问题。(2)在这位研究者所谓的“Hulten-Bruegel Paradise”中，一个事实上的不一致性困扰着任何试图向后推断1996年博斯金委员会报告的价格指数上涨幅度的努力。如果追溯得足够远，这种向后推断意味着真实的消费水平低得令人难以置信，例如，两个世纪这一悖论提出了一种可能性，即在某些时间段内，主要产品的价格指数可能为零，甚至向下倾斜，关于主题（1）的研究现已完成，并得出了惊人的结论。新的MFP指标显示，1928 ~ 1950年期间的增长峰值要小得多，快速增长期可以进一步追溯到1891年，之前令人困惑的产出资本比率的行为得到了解决。该项目的主要重点现在转向价格计量。政府价格指数的偏差通常被认为是向上的，也就是说，夸大了通货膨胀。这个项目的新奇在于探索在前几十年通货膨胀可能被低估（或被大大低估）的可能性。这种可能性迄今尚未得到系统的研究，这意味着在衡量生产率增长迅速的黄金时代，MFP的增长可能被夸大了。 住房服务（包括租金和住房所有权）是拟议研究的中心焦点，其目的是制定新的指数的价格和质量变化的住房在整个时期从第一次世界大战至今。一些数据来源表明，官方的住宅租金CPI（这是国民收入账户中房屋所有权通缩的基础）可能大大低估了质量调整租金的通胀，特别是在1925年至1975年期间。对住宅住房质量的研究的一个有用的副产品将是提供新的信息，以重新评估过去三十年来建筑业生产率负增长的难题。该提案还提供了证据，表明CPI可能低估了服装的历史通胀率，这是消费者支出的另一个重要组成部分。平均支付价格和享乐指数与来自同一数据源的匹配模型指数的比较表明，服装通胀率可能比匹配模型指数或CPI快得多。

During the twentieth century the U. S. economy experienced sharp accelerations and decelerations in the growth of multi-factor productivity (MFP) over medium-term intervals. This pattern of acceleration, deceleration, and reacceleration has been the point of departure for numerous hypotheses about the sources of growth earlier in the century, about the post-1972 productivity growth slowdown, and about the post-1995 productivity growth revival.This project aims to carry out measurement projects that question the magnitude and timing of long-term changes in MFP growth in the U. S. since the late nineteenth century. There are two separate parts to the research plan. (1) Standard MFP data prior to World War II are not consistent with official postwar government series, have not been adjusted for the changing quality of inputs, and require further adjustment for problems in the measurement of capital input. (2) In what the investigator called the "Hulten-Bruegel Paradox," a factual inconsistency plagues any attempt to extrapolate backward an upward price index bias of the magnitude reported by the 1996 Boskin commission. Such backward extrapolation implies implausibly low levels of real consumption if one goes back far enough, e.g., two centuries. The paradox raises the possibility that for some time intervals, price indexes for major products may have had a zero or even downward bias.Research on topic (1) has now been completed with striking conclusions. New measures of MFP show much less of a peak in growth during 1928-50, the period of rapid growth extends back further to 1891, and the puzzling previous behavior of the output-capital ratio is resolved. The main emphasis in the project now turns to price measurement. Bias in government price indexes is normally assumed to be upward, that is, overstating inflation. The novelty in this project is to explore the possibility that inflation may have been understated (or overstated by substantially less) in earlier decades. This possibility, which has not heretofore been systematically investigated, implies that MFP growth may have been overstated in the golden era when measured productivity growth was rapid. Shelter services (both rent and homeownership) are the central focus of the proposed research, the aim of which is to develop new indexes of price and quality change for shelter over the full period from World War I to date. Several sources of data have been uncovered that suggest that the official CPI for residential rent, which is the basis for the deflation of home ownership in the national income accounts, may substantially understate inflation in quality-adjusted rents, particularly between 1925 and 1975. A useful byproduct of the research on the quality of residential shelter will be to provide new information to reassess the puzzle of negative productivity growth in the construction industry over the past three decades. The proposal also provides evidence that the CPI may understate the historic inflation rate for apparel, another important component of consumer expenditure. Comparisons of average prices paid and hedonic indexes with matched-model indexes from the same data source suggest the possibility of a much more rapid rate of apparel inflation than in the matched-model indexes or in the CPI.