Aggregate Productivity Growth
Abstract This chapter seeks to synthesize and extend the emerging literature on the connection between micro- and aggregate productivity growth dynamics. It focuses primarily on the empirical findings and shows that the measured quantitative contribution of reallocation to aggregate productivity growth varies significantly across studies. The objective is to understand the sources of the differences in results across studies. It pursues this objective in two ways. First, it compares the results carefully across studies, taking note of differences on a variety of dimensions including country, sectoral coverage, time period, frequency, and measurement methodology. Second, it exploits establishment-level data for the U.S. manufacturing sector as well as for a few selected service sector industries to conduct an independent investigation of the relevant issues. A commentary is also included at the end of the chapter.