Why are initial estimates of productivity growth so unreliable?

Jan Jacobs and Simon van Norden ()

Journal of Macroeconomics, 2016, vol. 47, issue PB, 200-213

Abstract: This paper argues that initial estimates of productivity growth will tend to be much less reliable than those of most other macroeconomic aggregates, such as output or employment growth. Two distinct factors complicate productivity measurement. (1) When production increases, factor inputs typically increase as well. Productivity growth is therefore typically less variable than output growth, meaning that measurement errors will tend to be relatively more important. (2) Revisions to published estimates of production and factor inputs tend to be less highly correlated than the published estimates themselves. This further increases the impact of data revisions on published productivity estimates.

Keywords: Productivity; Real-time analysis; Data revisions; Greenbook projections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 J24 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070415001421
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:47:y:2016:i:pb:p:200-213

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2015.11.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Macroeconomics is currently edited by Douglas McMillin and Theodore Palivos

More articles in Journal of Macroeconomics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().