Another Look at Productivity Growth in Industrialized Countries

This paper discusses early work on productivity change by Färe and Grosskopf and their co-authors. We illustrate the use of recent statistical results by revisiting and updating Färe et al. (1994, AER). We analyze 17 OECD countries, estimating productivity change and its sources as measured by Malmquist indices and various decompositions. We describe and use recent theoretical results to make inferences, thereby quantifying what is learned from the data as opposed to merely providing point estimates