Productivity and the allocation of capital following the great recession

劳动生产率在2008年金融危机开始时急剧下降。每个工人的产出仍然比危机前的趋势低14个百分点左右。生产率下降的规模和持续的停滞一直是英国大衰退的决定性特征，通常被称为“生产率之谜”。在解决这个难题方面已经取得了进展，其中大部分是通过英格兰银行和财政研究所的工作。我们知道，解决办法并不在于改变劳动力的构成，也不在于经济中的产业转移。在经济衰退开始时，生产力受到抑制，因为拥有足够资源的雇主保留了熟练和有经验的工人，即使他们当时的生产力较低（这被称为“劳动力囤积”）。从那时起，多种因素可能导致了经济持续疲软，包括：真实的工资下降（这可能促进了劳动力囤积，并导致企业用劳动力替代资本，但这也可能是由于生产率较低）;投资下降（导致工人拥有的优质资本越来越少）;企业生存率比之前的经济衰退更高。然而，仅从这些因素来看，很难解释整个问题。在本课题中，我们将探讨资本配置的作用。以前的证据表明，当资源流向回报率最高的用途时，经济的整体生产率--全要素生产率（TFP）--会得到大幅提高。我们已经发现初步证据表明，自2008年以来，英国投资与回报率之间的联系已经破裂。经济衰退的特点是相对需求冲击和企业间资本回报率的日益分散。尽管如此，在资本分配方面几乎没有调整;资本没有流向回报最高的项目。这也许并不奇怪，因为自2008年以来，资本在整个经济中流动的主要渠道（新投资和企业的进入和退出）一直明显疲软。英国的经历与英国以往的衰退以及美国当前的经历形成了鲜明对比。不确定性的增加和金融市场的减值是资本为什么没有调整以应对冲击的重要候选人。在这个项目中，我们认为这些因素扭曲了公司对投资多少资本的选择。我们的目标是量化这种扭曲的规模，并估计它们在阻碍资本配置从而降低总TFP（从而降低劳动生产率）方面的重要性。该项目将是新颖的，以前开发的方法，从学术文献的背景下，先进的经济衰退，现有的文献大多数资源配置不当的重点是发展中国家，并试图解释其相对较差的生产力表现。此外，我们计划扩展现有的建模框架，以明确说明动态资本调整的过程。也就是说，要考虑到即使在正常时期也会抑制资本调整的成本的存在。生产率的提高是生活水平提高和经济增长的源泉。因此，了解生产力低下的原因对于确定政策挑战和设计解决方案至关重要。例如，低生产率问题是暂时的还是永久的，这是判断英国供给能力以及是否需要扩张性政策的关键。这对货币政策尤其重要，因为货币政策必须考虑经济扩张的通胀后果。该项目将汇集英格兰银行和IFS的专业知识，以期推动解决生产率难题，并直接向决策者提供信息。

Labour productivity fell sharply at the start of the 2008 financial crisis. Output produced per worker remains around 14 percentage points below the pre-crisis trend. The scale of the productivity fall and the continued stagnation has been the defining feature of the UK's Great Recession and is commonly termed the 'productivity puzzle'. Headway has been made in solving the puzzle, much of it by work at the Bank of England and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. We know that the solution does not lie in the changing composition of the work force or in an industrial shift in the economy. At the start of the recession productivity was depressed as employers with sufficient resources retained skilled and experienced workers even though they were less productive at that time (this is known as 'labour hoarding'). Since then, multiple factors have likely contributed to the continued weakness, including: a fall in real wages (that may have facilitated labour hoarding and led firms to substitute labour for capital, but that may also be a result of lower productivity); a fall in investment (such that workers have less, and less good capital to work with); higher firm survival than in previous recessions. However, it has been difficult to account for the entire puzzle by appealing to these factors alone.In this project we will explore the role of capital allocation. Previous evidence shows that the overall productivity of the economy - Total Factor Productivity (TFP) - is improved substantially when resources flow to the uses that have the highest return. We have found preliminary evidence that the link between investment and rates of return in the UK has broken down since 2008. The recession was characterised by relative demand shocks and an increasing dispersion in rates of return to capital across firms. Despite this, there has been very little adjustment in the allocation of capital; capital is not flowing to the projects with the highest returns. This is perhaps not surprising given that the key channels through which capital flows across the economy (new investment and the entry and exit of firms) have been notably weak since 2008. The UK experience stands in contrast to previous UK recessions, and to the current experience of the US. An increase in uncertainty and financial market impairment are important candidates for why capital has not been adjusted in response to shocks. In this project we view such factors as distorting firms' choices over how much capital to invest in. Our objective is to quantify the scale of such distortions and to estimate how important they are in impeding the allocation of capital and thereby lowering aggregate TFP (and therefore labour productivity). This project will be novel in applying previously developed methods from the academic literature to the context of an advanced economy recession; most of existing literature on resource misallocation focuses on developing countries and seeks to explain their relatively poor productivity performance. In addition, we plan to extend the existing modelling framework to explicitly account for a process of dynamic capital adjustment. That is, to account for the presence of costs that inhibit the adjustment of capital even in normal times. Productivity growth is the source of rising living standards and economic growth. Understanding the causes of weak productivity is therefore central to identifying the policy challenges and designing the solutions. For example, the extent to which low productivity is a temporary or permanent problem is central to judging the UK's supply capacity, and whether expansionary policies are called for. This is of particular importance to monetary policy, which must consider the inflationary consequences of economic expansion. This project will bring together expertise from the Bank of England and the IFS with a view to advancing the solution to the productivity puzzle and directly informing policy makers.