Investment-specific and multi-factor productivity in multi-sector open economies: Data and analysis

In the second half of the 1990s, labor productivity growth rose in the United States and declined in most parts of Europe. This paper documents changes in capital deepening and multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth in information and communication technology (ICT) and non-ICT sectors. We consider MFP growth in the ICT sector as investment-specific productivity (ISP) growth. We perform simulations suggested by the data by adopting a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model with traded and nontraded goods. For ISP, we consider level increases and persistent growth rate increases that are symmetric across countries and allow for costs of adjusting capital-labor ratios that are considerably high in one country because of structural differences. Investment-specific productivity increases generated investment booms unless adjustment costs are excessively high. For MFP, we consider persistent growth rate shocks that are asymmetric. When these MFP shocks affect only traded goods (as commonly assumed), movements in "international" variables are qualitatively similar to those in the data. However, when such shocks also affect nontraded goods (as suggested by the data), movements in some of the variables are not qualitatively similar to those in the data. For the acquisition of plausible results for the growth rate shocks, slow recognition needs to be taken into account.