Growth, Capital Shares, and A New Production Function

摘要提案编号：0242000机构： 加州伯克利分校NSF： 经济型基本制冷剂：书名：《增长、资本份额和一种新的生产函数》四个程式化的事实加在一起，构成了现代增长理论中的一个难题：（1）一些国家可以长期以相对稳定的平均速度增长，（2）与传统观点相反，在大多数国家，要素支付占国内生产总值的比例并不是长期不变的，通常在几十年内呈现大趋势，（3）对资本和劳动之间的替代弹性的估计通常小于1;（4）资本设备的价格相对于消费的价格正在下降，这表明某些技术变化体现在设备资本中，这种现象通常被称为投资专用技术变化。对于一个表现出稳定状态的新古典增长模型，要么技术变革在长期内必须完全是劳动力的增加，要么生产函数必须是柯布-道格拉斯。在存在投资专用性技术变化的情况下，为了获得稳定的增长，生产函数应该是柯布-道格拉斯函数;然而，这与事实2和事实3不一致。这项研究包括三个项目，记录和解决这个难题。第一个项目将创建一个新的数据集，在尽可能长的时间内，在总量和行业层面上为大量国家的资本和劳动力要素支付。这一点很重要，因为事实2与传统智慧背道而驰：人们普遍认为，资本份额在一段时间内相对恒定。 第二个项目提出了一个新的生产函数，这是符合所有四个程式化的事实。要素份额和替代弹性的估计是由生产函数的短期属性驱动的。然而，稳态增长的要求涉及长期生产函数的形状。这里提出的生产函数利用了这种差异。短期替代弹性对要素定价的影响小于1。从长远来看，出现了额外的替代可能性，并以柯布-道格拉斯结构进行生产。第三个项目探讨了这种新生产函数的微观基础。替代弹性低的生产技术可能适合于特定的投入组合。要用非常不同的投入组合进行生产，可能需要一种新的生产技术。特定技术的形态决定了短期替代弹性，而长期替代弹性则由新发现技术的分布决定。稳定增长的一个必要条件是新技术按照帕累托分布分布。同样的分配假设产生了一个长期的生产函数，它采用了柯布-道格拉斯的形式。这项研究将解决增长理论中一些与观察事实不一致的紧迫难题。

ABSTRACTPROPOSAL NUMBER: 0242000INSTITUTION: University of California at BerkeleyNSF PROGRAM: ECONOMICSPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Jones, Charles IPROPOSAL TITLE: Growth, Capital Shares, and A New Production FunctionFour stylized facts, taken together, constitute a puzzle in modem growth theory: (1) some countries can grow at a relatively stable average rate for a long time, (2) contrary to conventional wisdom, factor payments as a share of GDP are not constant over time in most countries and typically exhibit large trends for several decades, (3) estimates of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor are often less than unity, (4) the price of capital equipment relative to that of consumption is falling, suggesting that some technical change is embodied in equipment capital, a phenomenon often called investment-specific technical change. For a neoclassical growth model to exhibit a steady state, either technical change must be entirely labor augmenting in the long run, or the production function must be Cobb-Douglas. To get steady growth in the presence investment-specific technical change, the production function should be Cobb-Douglas; however, this is inconsistent with Facts 2 and 3. This research consists of three projects that document and resolve this puzzle. The first project will create a new dataset on factor payments to capital and labor for a large number of countries, both at the aggregate and industry levels, over as long a time as possible. This is important because Fact 2 runs counter to the conventional wisdom: it is commonly accepted that capital shares are relatively constant over time. The second project proposes a new production function that is consistent with all four stylized facts. Factor shares and estimates of the elasticity of substitution are driven by short-run properties of the production function. However, requirements for steady-state growth involve the shape of the long-run production function. The production function proposed here exploits this difference. The short-run elasticity of substitution responsible for factor pricing is less than one. In the long run, additional substitution possibilities arise and production occurs with a Cobb-Douglas structure. The third project explores the microfoundations for this new production function. A production technique, with a low elasticity of substitution, may be appropriate for a given input mix. To produce with a very different input mix, a new production technique may be required. The shape of a given technique governs the short-run elasticity of substition, while the long- run elasticity of substitution is determined by the distribution of newly discovered techniques. A necessary condition for steady growth is that new techniques are distributed according to a Pareto distribution. This same distributional assumption generates a long-run production function that takes the Cobb-Douglas form. This research will resolve some of pressing puzzles in growth theories that seem to be inconsistent with the observed facts.