Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Matthew D. Shapiro
Measured productivity growth increased substantially during the second half of the current economic expansion. This paper examines whether this increase owes to an increase in the rate of...
Why Has China Survived the Asian Crisis So Well? What Risks Remain? (1999)
John G. Fernald, Oliver D. Babson, John G. Fernald, Oliver D. Babson
NOTE: International Finance Discussion Papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment. References to International Finance Discussion Papers (other than an...
Aggregate Productivity and Aggregate Technology (1997)
Susanto Basu, Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, John G. Fernald
NOTE: International Finance Discussion Papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment. References in publications to International Finance Discussion Papers...
China and emerging Asia: comrades or competitors?
Alan G. Ahearne, John G. Fernald, Prakash Loungani, John W. Schindler
Do increases in China's exports reduce exports of other emerging Asian economies? We find that correlations between Chinese export growth and that of other emerging Asian economies are actually...
Trend breaks, long-run restrictions, and the contractionary effects of technology improvements
Structural vector-autoregressions with long-run restrictions are extraordinarily sensitive to low-frequency correlations. This paper explores this sensitivity analytically and via simulations,...
Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Nicholas Oulton, Sylaja Srinivasan
We argue that unmeasured investments in intangible organizational capital—associated with the role of information and communications technology (ICT) as a ‘general purpose technology’—can...
Roads to Prosperity? Assessing the Link between Public Capital and Productivity
Does the positive correlation between infrastructure and productivity reflect causation? If so, in which direction? The author finds that, when growth in roads (the largest component of...
Are Technology Improvements Contractionary?
Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Miles S. Kimball
Yes. We construct a measure of aggregate technology change, controlling for aggregation effects, varying utilization of capital and labor, nonconstant returns, and imperfect competition. On impact,...
Flying geese or sitting ducks: China’s impact on the trading fortunes of other Asian economies
Alan G. Ahearne, John G. Fernald, Prakash Loungani, John W. Schindler
This paper updates our earlier work (Ahearne, Fernald, Loungani and Schindler, 2003) on whether China, with its huge pool of labor and an allegedly undervalued exchange rate, is hurting the export...
Many people point to information and communications technology (ICT) as the key for understanding the acceleration in productivity in the United States since the mid-1990s. Stories of ICT as a...
Constant returns and small markups in U.S. manufacturing
Productivity ; Manufactures
Returns to scale in U.S. production: estimates and implications
A typical (roughly) two-digit industry in the United States appears to have constant or slightly decreasing returns to scale. Three puzzles emerge, however. First, estimates tend to rise at higher...
Aggregate productivity and aggregate technology
Aggregate productivity and aggregate technology are meaningful but distinct concepts. We show that a slightly-modified Solow productivity residual measures changes in economic welfare, even when...
Why has China survived the Asian crisis so well? What risks remain?
John G. Fernald, Oliver D. Babson
China's strong growth in the midst of the Asian crisis is striking. We explore features of China's financial system that helped insulate it from the crisis, and then try to assess whether China has...
Why is productivity procyclical? Why do we care?
Productivity rises in booms and falls in recessions. There are four main explanations for procyclical productivity: (i) procyclical technology shocks, (ii) widespread imperfect competition and...
Countering contagion: Does China's experience offer a blueprint?
Alan G. Ahearne, John G. Fernald, Prakash Loungani
China did not succumb to the Asian crisis of 1997-99, despite two apparent sources of vulnerability: a weak financial system and increased export competition from the Asian crisis economies. This...
Productivity growth in the 1990s: technology, utilization, or adjustment
Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Matthew D. Shapiro
Measured productivity growth increased substantially during the second half of the 1990s. This paper examines whether this increase owes to an increase in the rate of technological change or whether...
Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Nicholas Oulton, Sylaja Srinivasan
Solow's paradox has disappeared in the United States but remains alive and well in the United Kingdom. In particular, the U.K. experienced an information and communications technology (ICT)...
A general-equilibrium asset-pricing approach to the measurement of nominal and real bank output
Christina Wang, Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald
This paper addresses the proper measurement of financial service output that is not priced explicitly. It shows how to impute nominal service output from financial intermediaries’ interest income...
The fall and rise of the global economy
John G. Fernald, Victoria Greenfield
Economic conditions - United States ; Economies of scale
Aggregate Productivity and the Productivity of Aggregates
Explanations of procyclical productivity play a key role in a variety of business-cycle models. Most of these models, however, explain this procyclicality within a representative-firm paradigm. This...
Are Apparent Productive Spillovers a Figment of Specification Error?
Using data on gross output for two-digit manufacturing industries, we find that an increase in the output of one manufacturing sector has little or no significant effect on the productivity of other...
Productivity Growth in the 1990s: Technology, Utilization, or Adjustment?
Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Matthew D. Shapiro
Measured productivity growth increased substantially during the second half of the 1990s. This paper examines whether this increase owes to an increase in the rate of technological change or whether...
Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald, Nicholas Oulton, Sylaja Srinivasan
We argue that unmeasured investments in intangible organizational capital associated with the role of information and communications technology (ICT) as a general purpose technology' can explain the...
Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications.
Basu, Susanto, Fernald, John G
A typical two-digit industry in the United States appears to have approximately constant returns to scale. Three puzzles emerge, however. First, estimates rise at higher levels of aggregation....
Countering contagion: Does China's experience offer a blueprint?
Alan G. Ahearne, John G. Fernald, Prakash Loungani
China did not succumb to the Asian crisis of 1997-99, despite two apparent sources of vulnerability: a weak financial system and increased export competition from the Asian crisis economies. This...
A General-Equilibrium Asset-Pricing Approach to the Measurement of Nominal and Real Bank Output
J. Christina Wang, Susanto Basu, John G. Fernald
This paper addresses the proper measurement of financial service output that is not priced explicitly. It shows how to impute nominal service output from financial intermediaries’ interest...
What do we know and not know about potential output?
Potential output is an important concept in economics. Policymakers often use a one-sector neoclassical model to think about long-run growth, and often assume that potential output is a smooth series...
What do we know (and not know) about potential output?
Potential output is an important concept in economics. Policymakers often use a one-sector neoclassical model to think about long-run growth, and they often assume that potential output is a smooth...