Reallocation and productivity growth

Conference presentation

The conference presentation, Reallocation and productivity growth, was presented by Eric Bartelsman, from the Free University of Amsterdam, at the Productivity Perspectives 2004 conference. The presentation is based on work with J Haltiwanger, S Scarpetta, F Schivardi, and many others.

Abstract

The talk is based on a series of papers in various combinations with the above authors. The research makes use of a cross-country industry timeseries dataset of indicators built up from (confidential) micro-level sources, through a network of researchers with access to such data. In this presentation, a framework will be presented in which productivity growth is decomposed into within-firm and reallocation components. Next, the special role of firms at the technology frontier is discussed, as well as the mechanism by which such firms attempt to get to, stay on, or push out the frontier. Next, a brief overview will be given of the method of data collection, the so-called distributed micro-data analysis. The meat of the presentation is an illustrated storyline showing productivity dispersion of firms in an industry and cross country evidence on the position of the productivity frontier. Next, the importance of resource reallocation to aggregate productivity growth, and to incentive for firms to engage in frontiersmanship is illustrated. Finally, some comparisons are made on the differential patterns of entry, exit, and post-entry selection in the comparison countries.