Productivity rises in booms and falls in recessions. There are four main explanations for this procyclical productivity: (i) procyclical technology shocks, (ii) widespread imperfect competition and increasing returns, (iii) variable utilization of inputs over the cycle, and (iv) resource...

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 procedure is misleading. We decompose aggregate productivity changes into several terms, each of...

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 sectors. Using value-added data, however, we confirm the results of previous studies which find...

We show that the welfare of a country's infinitely-lived representative consumer is summarized, to a first order, by total factor productivity (TFP) and by the capital stock per capita. These variables suffice to calculate welfare changes within a country, as well as welfare differences across...

Productivity rises in booms and falls in recessions. There are four main explanations for this procyclical productivity: (i) procyclical technology shocks, (ii) widespread imperfect competition and increasing returns, (iii) variable utilization of inputs over the cycle, and (iv) resource...

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 productivity and technology differ because of distortions such as imperfect competition. We then...

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 increasing returns, (iii) variable utilization of inputs over the cycle, and (iv) resource...

We prove that in a closed economy without distortionary taxation, the welfare of a representative consumer is summarized to a first order by the current and expected future values of the Solow productivity residual in level and by the initial endowment of capital. The equivalence holds if the...