Productivity and participation: an international comparison

Robert McGuckin and Bart van Ark
Additional contact information
Bart van Ark: Groningen University

No 200578, GGDC Research Memorandum from Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen

Abstract: The purpose of this project is to increase our knowledge about trade-offs between productivity and labour market participation across the OECD, and more specifically in the European Union. The inquiry is focused around the question whether there is a trade-off between labour participation and productivity and, if so, how big it is and how long does it last. In particular, through a series of panel regressions we isolate the structural or long-term relationships, as well as identify how long the ?longterm? is. We also investigate the extent to which the trade-offs can be associated with particular types of workers (in terms of age or gender). Our main findings are, firstly, that the negative productivity response elasticity to a 1% rise in participation (measured as the employment rate) is less than 0.3 and peters out in less than 5 years. Secondly, increased participation is the key factor related to this productivity growth tradeoff. We find little effect of hours per worker on productivity. Thirdly, female participation has the strongest negative impact on productivity growth, but it is associated with specific age and/or cohort effects that are likely to diminish in the longer run. Finally, we investigate simple scenarios to look at the effect of increases in participation on productivity and per capita income, showing the large potential for income gains without much loss in productivity.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/288059549 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/288059549 [302 Found]--> https://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/288059549 [302 Found]--> https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/publications/pub(8ffc542b-784a-45b8-b992-73ea5cb81bd9).html [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/pub(8ffc542b-784a-45b8-b992-73ea5cb81bd9).html [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/productivity-and-participation-an-international-comparison)

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:gro:rugggd:200578

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GGDC Research Memorandum from Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hanneke Tamling ().