Productivity and the allocation of capital following the great recession

2008年金融危机开始时，劳动生产率大幅下降。每名工人的产出仍比危机前的趋势低14个百分点。生产率下降的幅度和持续的停滞一直是英国大衰退的典型特征，通常被称为“生产率之谜”。在解决这一难题方面取得了进展，这在很大程度上得益于英国央行和财政研究所的工作。我们知道，解决办法不在于劳动力构成的变化，也不在于经济中的产业转移。在经济衰退之初，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，尽管他们当时的生产率较低(这被称为“劳动力囤积”)。自那以来，多种因素很可能导致了经济持续疲软，包括：实际工资下降(这可能助长了劳动力囤积，导致企业用劳动力取代资本，但这也可能是生产率下降的结果)；投资下降(导致工人拥有的资金减少，可供合作的好资本也减少)；企业存活率高于前几次衰退。然而，单靠这些因素很难解释整个谜题。在这个项目中，我们将探索资本分配的作用。以前的证据表明，当资源流向回报最高的用途时，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瓦解。经济衰退的特征是相对需求冲击和各公司资本回报率的日益分散。尽管如此，资本配置几乎没有调整；资本没有流向回报最高的项目。这或许并不令人惊讶，因为自2008年以来，资本在整个经济中流动的关键渠道(新投资和企业的进出)一直非常疲软。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。不确定性增加和金融市场减值是资本为何没有因应冲击而进行调整的重要因素。在这个项目中，我们认为这样的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分配从而降低总TFP(从而降低劳动生产率)方面的重要性。这个项目在将以前开发的方法从学术文献应用到发达经济衰退的背景方面将是新颖的；大多数现有的关于资源错配的文献侧重于发展中国家，并试图解释它们相对较差的生产率表现。此外，我们计划扩展现有的建模框架，以明确说明资本动态调整的过程。也就是说，即使在正常时期，也存在抑制资本调整的成本。生产率增长是生活水平提高和经济增长的源泉。因此，了解生产率疲软的原因对于确定政策挑战和设计解决方案至关重要。例如，低生产率在多大程度上是暂时或永久性的问题，是判断英国供应能力的核心，以及是否需要扩张性政策。这对货币政策尤其重要，货币政策必须考虑经济扩张带来的通胀后果。该项目将汇集英格兰银行和国际金融协会的专业知识，以期推动生产率难题的解决方案，并直接向政策制定者提供信息。

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.