Prices of High-Tech Products, Mismeasurement, and Pace of Innovation

David Byrne, Stephen Oliner () and Daniel Sichel

No 23369, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Two recent papers have made compelling cases that mismeasurement of prices of high tech products cannot explain the slow pace of labor productivity growth that has prevailed since the mid-2000s. Does that result indicate that mismeasurement of high-tech products has limited implications for patterns of economic growth? The answer in this paper is “no.” We demonstrate that the understatement of price declines for high-tech products in official measures has a dramatic effect on the pattern of MFP growth across sectors. In particular, we show that correcting this mismeasurement implies faster MFP growth in high-tech sectors and slower MFP advance outside the high-tech sector. If MFP growth is taken as a rough proxy for the pace of innovation, our results suggest that innovation in the tech sector has been more rapid than the rate that would be inferred from official statistics (and less rapid outside high-tech). These results deepen the productivity puzzle. If the pace of innovation in high-tech sectors has been more rapid than indicated by official statistics, then it is perhaps even more puzzling that overall labor productivity growth has been so sluggish in recent years.

JEL-codes: E01 E22 E24 L63 L86 O3 O33 O4 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-gro, nep-mac and nep-tid
Note: DAE EFG PR
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published as David Byrne & Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2017. "Prices of high-tech products, mismeasurement, and the pace of innovation," Business Economics, vol 52(2), pages 103-113.

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Journal Article: Prices of high-tech products, mismeasurement, and the pace of innovation (2017)
Working Paper: Prices of high-tech products, mismeasurement, and pace of innovation (2017)
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