Missing growth measurement in Germany

Sven Schreiber and Vanessa Schmidt

No 205-2020, IMK Working Paper from IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute

Abstract: Using detailed establishment-level micro data, this paper analyses the quantitative implications of the missing-growth hypothesis by Aghion, Bergeaud, Boppart, Klenow, and Li (2019) for Germany. This hypothesis states that actual growth rates of real output are systematically understated by official estimates, such that a part of real growth is missing in the published data. The underlying effect rests on overstated inflation estimates due to imputed prices for disappearing products, which is indirectly measured by plant entry and exit dynamics. Our benchmark result for the sample 1998-2016 amounts to understated real output growth of 0.54 percentage points per year on average, which is quite closely in line with the earlier findings for the USA (0.54 p.p. 1983-2013) and for France (0.5 p.p. 2004-2015). We provide some robustness analysis and discuss limitations of the approach.

Keywords: creative destruction; price imputation; inflation measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2020
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Related works:
Journal Article: Missing growth measurement in Germany (2022)
Working Paper: Missing growth measurement in Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Missing growth measurement in Germany (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imk:wpaper:205-2020

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