Productivity Adjustments and Learning-by-Doing as Human Capital

James Bessen

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: This paper measures plant-level productivity gains associated with learning curves across the entire manufacturing sector. We measure these gains at plant startups and also after major employment changes. We find: 1.) The gains are strongly associated with a variety of human capital measures implying that learning-by-doing is largely a firm-specific human capital investment. 2.) This implicit investment is large; many plants invest as much in learning-by-doing as they invest in physical capital and much more than they invest in formal job training. 3.) This investment differs persistently over industries and is higher with greater R&D. 4.) Consistent with a learning-by-doing interpretation, the human capital investment is much larger following employment decreases than increases. We conclude that learning-by-doing is a major factor in wage determination, technical progress and asymmetric employment adjustment costs.

Keywords: CES; economic; research; micro; data; microdata; chief; economist (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:97-17

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