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Productivity and the Welfare of Nations

Author

Listed:
  • Susanto Basu

    (Boston College
    NBER)

  • Luigi Pascali

    (Boston College)

  • Fabio Schiantarelli

    (Boston College
    IZA)

  • Luis Serven

    (World Bank)

Abstract
We show how to relate the welfare of a country's infinitely-lived representative consumer to observable aggregate data. To a first order, welfare is summarized by total factor productivity and by the capital stock per capita. These variables suffice to calculate welfare changes within a country, as well as welfare differences across countries. The result holds regardless of the type of production technology and the degree of market competition. It applies to open economies as well, if total factor productivity is constructed using domestic absorption, instead of gross domestic product, as the measure of output. It also requires that total factor productivity be constructed with prices and quantities as perceived by consumers, not firms. Thus, factor shares need to be calculated using after-tax wages and rental rates and they will typically sum to less than one. These results are used to calculate welfare gaps and growth rates in a sample of developed countries with high-quality total factor productivity and capital data. Under realistic scenarios, the U.K. and Spain had the highest growth rates of welfare during the sample period 1985-2005, but the U.S. had the highest level of welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Susanto Basu & Luigi Pascali & Fabio Schiantarelli & Luis Serven, 2012. "Productivity and the Welfare of Nations," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 793, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 18 Feb 2016.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:793
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Total Factor Productivity as a Measure of Welfare
      by dvollrath in The Growth Economics Blog on 2014-09-04 02:02:47

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    Cited by:

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    4. David Dollar & Tatjana Kleineberg & Aart Kraay, 2015. "Growth, inequality and social welfare: cross-country evidence," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(82), pages 335-377.
    5. Susanto Basu & Luigi Pascali & Fabio Schiantarelli & Luis Serven, 2012. "Productivity and the welfare of nations," Economics Working Papers 1312, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    6. Susanto Basu & Luigi Pascali & Fabio Schiantarelli & Luis Serven, 2022. "Productivity and the Welfare of Nations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1647-1682.
    7. Nicholas Oulton, 2012. "Hooray for GDP!," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 383, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. David R Baqaee & Ariel Burstein, 2023. "Welfare and Output With Income Effects and Taste Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 769-834.
    9. Ezra Oberfield, 2013. "Productivity and Misallocation During a Crisis: Evidence from the Chilean Crisis of 1982," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 100-119, January.
    10. Cheng,Wenyin & Fukao,Kyoji & Meng,Bo, 2024. "Global Value Chains: Unveiling the Nexus of Productivity and Welfare," IDE Discussion Papers 933, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    11. Monacelli, Tommaso & Sala, Luca & Siena, Daniele, 2023. "Real interest rates and productivity in small open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    12. Ville Kaitila, 2016. "GDP growth in Russia: different capital stock series and the terms of trade," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 129-145, April.
    13. Eduardo Davila & Andreas Schaab, 2024. "Welfare Accounting," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2412, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    14. Guido Sandleris & Mark L. J. Wright, 2014. "The Costs of Financial Crises: Resource Misallocation, Productivity, and Welfare in the 2001 Argentine Crisis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 116(1), pages 87-127, January.
    15. Susanto Basu & Luigi Pascali & Fabio Schiantarelli & Luis Serven, 2012. "Productivity and the Welfare of Nations," Working Papers 621, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.
    16. Hyytinen, Ari & Maliranta, Mika, 2013. "Firm lifecycles and evolution of industry productivity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 1080-1098.
    17. Michael Peneder & Christian Rammer, 2018. "Measuring Competitiveness," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 60838, August.
    18. Gabriel Felbermayr & Benjamin Jung & Gabriel J. Felbermayr, 2015. "Market Size and TFP in New New Trade Theory," CESifo Working Paper Series 5583, CESifo.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Welfare; TFP; Solow Residual;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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