Firm productivity growth and skill

David Maré, Dean Hyslop and Richard Fabling

New Zealand Economic Papers, 2017, vol. 51, issue 3, 302-326

Abstract: This paper examines firm multifactor productivity (mfp) growth and changing skill levels of labour in New Zealand, using NZ microdata for 2001–2012. Strong employment growth for lower skilled workers lowered average skill by 1.8% over the period, with declining unobserved skill (−3.6%) outweighing increasing observed skill (1.8%). Consequently, skill-adjusted mfp growth (0.24% pa) was higher than unadjusted growth (0.14% pa). The impact of skill adjustment was almost entirely due to changing skill composition within continuing firms. Skill dilution was strongest pre-global financial crisis (GFC), and was reversed when employment contracted in 2009 and 2010. Adjusting for skill dilution reveals stronger procyclical variation in mfp.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00779954.2016.1203815 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Firm Productivity Growth and Skill (2015)
Working Paper: Firm Productivity Growth and Skill (2015)
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:taf:nzecpp:v:51:y:2017:i:3:p:302-326

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RNZP20

DOI: 10.1080/00779954.2016.1203815

Access Statistics for this article

New Zealand Economic Papers is currently edited by Dennis Wesselbaum

More articles in New Zealand Economic Papers from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().