Engines of sectoral labor productivity growth

Zsófia L. Bárány, Christian Siegel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

We study the origins of labor productivity growth and its differences across sectors. In our model, sectors employ workers of different occupations and various forms of capital, none of which are perfect substitutes, and technology evolves at the sector-factor cell level. Using the model we infer technologies from US data over 1960-2017. We find that sectoral differences in labor productivity growth are largely due to sectoral differences in the growth rate of routine labor augmenting technologies. Neither capital accumulation nor the occupational employment structure within sectors explains much of the sectoral differences in labor productivity growth.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)304-343
Number of pages40
JournalReview of Economic Dynamics
Volume39
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Biased technological change
  • Labor productivity
  • Structural transformation

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