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1.1 Relative prices of computers and semiconductors,1.2 Relative prices of computers, communications, 1.3 Relative prices of computers, communications, and 1.10 Contributions of informat

Volume 3:

Economic Growth

in the Information Age

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jorgenson, Dale Weldeau, 1933–

Econometrics / Dale W Jorgenson.

p cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-262-10094-0 (v 3: hc: alk paper)

1 Production (Economic theory)—Econometric models I Title.

HB241.J67 2000

List of Figures ix

Dale W Jorgenson

Dale W Jorgenson

Dale W Jorgenson and Kevin J Stiroh

3.3 Setting the Speed Limit 103

Appendix B: Estimating Capital Services 129

Appendix D: Estimating Industry-Level Productivity 144

Richard F Garbaccio, Mun S Ho, and Dale W Jorgenson

4.2 Review of Previous Work on China’s Energy-Output

4.5 A Methodology for Decomposing the Change in Energy

Dale W Jorgenson and Eric Yip

6.4 Summary and Conclusion 243

Dale W Jorgenson

Mun S Ho and Dale W Jorgenson

8.5 The Effect of Increased Expenditures on Education 309

Dale W Jorgenson

9.2 Measuring the Household Standard of Living 3239.3 Comparing Standards of Living among Households 325

9.8 Poverty and Inequality within and between Groups 335

10 Indexing Government Programs for Changes in the Cost of

Dale W Jorgenson and Daniel T Slesnick

Richard F Garbaccio, Mun S Ho, and Dale W Jorgenson

11.2 A Dynamic Economy-Energy-Environment Model for

Dale W Jorgenson and Peter J Wilcoxen

1.1 Relative prices of computers and semiconductors,

1.2 Relative prices of computers, communications,

1.3 Relative prices of computers, communications, and

1.10 Contributions of information technology to total factor

1.12 Sources of average labor productivity growth 37

2.3 Relative price of capital stock, 1958–1992 57

2.5 Relative price of capital services, 1959–1992 592.6 Share of capital services quantity, 1959–1992 61

3.1 Relative prices of information technology outputs,

3.2 Output shares of information technology, 1960–1998 813.3 Input shares of information technology, 1960–1998 823.4 Sources of U.S economic growth, 1959–1998 883.5 Output contribution of information technology,

5.1 Convergence of output and input per capita and

5.2 Convergence of capital input, capital stock per capita

5.3 Convergence of labor input and hours worked per

8.1 (a) Human capital of the United States and (b) capital

8.2 (a) Student enrollment and (b) education cost as share

8.3 Effects of increasing expenditures on education

8.4 (a) Educational attainment of males, age 34 and (b)

8.5 Effects of increasing college enrollment by 20 percent

9.2 U.S poverty ratios 329

9.4 Relative poverty and remaining inequality 334

10.2 Tornqvist and social cost-of-living indexes 351

10.4 White and nonwhite cost-of-living indexes 35510.5 Male- and female-head cost-of-living indexes 35610.6 Nonelderly and elderly cost-of-living indexes 356

1.1 Information technology output and Gross Domestic

1.3 Information technology capital stock and domestic

1.4 Information technology capital services and gross

1.7 Sources of total factor productivity growth 341.8 Sources of average labor productivity growth 37

2.4 Growth rates of aggregate output, inputs, and

3.1 Average growth rates of selected outputs and inputs 803.2 Growth in U.S private domestic output and the sources

3.4 Impact of alternative deflation of software and

communications equipment on the sources of U.S

3.5 Information technology decomposition of TFP growth

for alternative deflation cases, 1990–1998 102

3.6 Growth rates of output, inputs, and total factor

productivity comparison of BLS, CBO, and

3.7 1996 value added and gross output by industry 1143.8 Sources of U.S economic growth by industry, 1958–1996 116A.1 Private domestic output and high-tech assets 127B.1 Investment and capital stock by asset type and class 136

B.3 Total capital services and high-tech assets 139

4.6 Decomposition of change in energy use per unit of GDP 169

4.8 Changes in composition of final demand, 1987–1992 1724.9 Decomposition of change in energy use with alternative

5.1 Disaggregation of capital by asset characteristics 1865.2 Disaggregation of labor by demographic characteristics 1875.3 Levels of output and input per capita and productivity

5.6 Growth in output and input per capita and productivity

5.7 Levels of capital input and capital stock per capita and

5.8 Growth in capital input and capital stock per capita

5.9 Levels of labor input and hours worked per capita and

5.10 Growth in labor input and hours worked per capita

6.1 Marginal effective corporate tax rates, nine countries,

8.2 (top) Estimates of the parameters of model; (bottom)

estimates of coefficients of production and consumption

8.3 Effects of higher expenditures on education 310

9.1 Jorgenson-Slesnick household equivalence scales

(Reference: Size 4, age 35–44, northeast, urban, white) 3279.2 Census equivalence scales (Reference: Size 4, nonfarm,

10.2 Unit-root tests; null hypothesis: unit root 34910.3 Cointegration tests; null hypothesis: no cointegration 350

11.1 Summary social accounting matrix for China, 1992

11.4 Effects of a carbon tax on first year sectoral prices

11.5 Effects of a carbon tax on first year sectoral output

A.1 Selected parameters and variables in the China model

Dale W Jorgenson

The stagflation of the 1970s greatly undermined the Keynesian tion of the 1930s, leading to the New Classical Counterrevolution thathas transformed the economics of the business cycle The unanticipatedAmerican growth revival of the 1990s has similar potential for revolu-tionizing economists’ perspectives on economic growth It is not sur-prising that the combination of more rapid growth and lower inflationhas touched off a strenuous debate about whether the improvements inAmerica’s economic performance can be sustained

Revolu-This volume presents my econometric studies of economic growth inthe information age The point of departure is my presidential address

to the American Economic Association, “Information Technology andthe U.S Economy,” delivered in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 6,

2001 In chapter 1 I show that the remarkable behavior of informationtechnology (IT) prices is the key to understanding the growth resurgence

of the American economy This can be traced to developments in conductor technology that are widely understood by technologists andeconomists

semi-The economics of information technology begins with the observationthat semiconductors have become cheaper at a truly astonishing rate.Modeling the behavior of semiconductor prices is a severe test for theeconometric methods used in the official price statistics A hedonicmodel gives the price of semiconductor products as a function of thecharacteristics that determine performance, such as speed of processingand storage capacity A constant quality price index isolates the pricechange by holding these characteristics constant

Mainframe and personal computers have come to rely heavily onsemiconductor storage devices, or “memory chips,” for main memory.Similarly, computers rely on microprocessors, or “logic chips,” for cen-tral processing However, semiconductors account for less than half of

computer costs, and computer prices have fallen much less rapidly thansemiconductor prices In 1985 the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)introduced constant quality price indexes for computers and peripheralequipment into the U.S National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA).Rosanne Cole et al (1986) of IBM constructed the computer price indexesemployed by BEA.

In 1985 the Program on Technology and Economic Policy that I direct

at Harvard University organized a conference to discuss the BEA-IBMconstant quality price indexes for computers Ralph Landau and I edited

the conference proceedings, Technology and Capital Formation (1989) This

volume established the foundation for my research with Kevin Stiroh(1995) on the impact of computers on economic growth In chapter 2 weshow that the concept of the cost of capital, presented in my volume

Capital Theory and Investment Behavior (1996), is the key to modeling the

economic impact of information technology

Swiftly falling IT prices provide a powerful economic incentive forsubstituting capital for labor, as well as substituting IT equipment forother forms of capital The rate of the IT price decline is also a keycomponent of the cost of capital, required for assessing the impacts ofrapidly growing stocks of computers Constant quality price indexesare used as deflators for investments in computers These investmentsare cumulated into stocks of computer capital Finally, constant qualityservice prices, incorporating the cost of capital, are employed to convertthe stocks into flows of computer services

The production possibility frontier was the principal innovation in

“The Embodiment Hypothesis,” chapter 2 in my volume, Postwar U.S Economic Growth (1995) The most compelling advantage of this model

is the explicit role that it provides for constant quality price indexes Thefrontier captures substitution between capital and labor inputs, as well

as substitution between investment and consumption outputs Usingthis concept, Stiroh and I have generated evidence of massive substitu-tions of computers for outputs of consumption goods and other invest-ment goods, as well as similar substitutions of services of computers forlabor inputs and other capital inputs

The eleventh set of comprehensive revisions of the U.S national counts, released by BEA in 1999, reclassified the output of software as aninvestment good These revisions also incorporated a constant qualityprice index for prepackaged software developed by Steven Oliner andDaniel Sichel (1994) In chapter 3 Stiroh and I extend the production pos-sibility frontier to include telecommunications equipment and software

ac-as well ac-as computers We employ a hedonic model of the prices of digitaltelephone switching equipment from the U.S national accounts.The rapid progress of econometric research on prices of informationtechnology has left some significant gaps While hedonic models ofprices for computers and peripheral equipment now cover all forms ofinvestment in these IT products, constant quality prices for telecommu-nications equipment and software cover only part of the investment Inchapter 3 Stiroh and I show that the impact of the resulting biases in ITprice indexes is to underestimate the growth of output and overestimatethe growth of total factor productivity.

In chapter 1 I include investments by the government sector, as well

as investments by business and household sectors, in the measure of

IT outputs My output measure also includes the imputed value of ITservices in the household and government sectors (The value of theseservices employed in the business sector is included in business incomeand does not require a separate imputation.) This measure of output

is similar to the concept of gross domestic product employed by BEA.However, my measure of IT services incorporates all the components ofthe cost of IT capital, while the BEA measure includes only depreciation

A key innovation in the model of production employed in chapter 1 isthe allocation of total factor productivity growth between informationand non-information technology I show that the contribution of in-formation technology roughly doubled between the periods 1990–1995and 1995–1999, but that the contribution of non-information technologyincreased even more However, the rise in the growth of total factor pro-ductivity accounted for less than a third of the two percent jump in U.S.economic growth after 1995 Almost half the jump was due to a surge inthe growth of capital input, while the rising contribution of labor inputaccounted for the rest

As a consequence of the advance of information technology, many ofthe most familiar concepts in growth economics have been superseded.The aggregate production function employed by Robert M Solow (1957,1960) heads the list The production function gives a single output as afunction of capital and labor inputs There is no role for separate prices

of investment and consumption goods and, hence, no place for constantquality prices of information technology in measuring the output ofinvestment goods

Similarly, capital stock is no longer adequate to capture the rising portance of IT This measure of capital input completely obscures therestructuring that is the wellspring of the American growth resurgence

im-Accurate modeling of substitution among different types of capital put, especially information technology and other forms of capital, isessential in assessing the impact of investment Finally, hours workedomits the rapid shifts in the evaluation of skills as a consequence ofadvances in information technology This has been superseded by ameasure of labor input that reflects substitution among workers withdifferent skills.

in-The second major theme of this volume is international comparisons

of patterns of economic growth in the information age This is also

the primary focus of my volume, International Comparisons of Economic Growth (1995) In chapter 5 Eric Yip and I present empirical support for

a neo-classical growth model characterized by persistent differences inproductivity, capital quality, labor quality, and hours worked per capitaamong countries This can be contrasted with the econometric version

of Solow’s (1956) neo-classical model employed in the seminal paper

by Gregory Mankiw, David Romer, and David Weil (1991) where thesecritical differences among countries are suppressed

Yip and I assemble the empirical evidence for our neo-classical growthmodel by constructing consistent data on the sources of economicgrowth for the G7 countries, covering the period 1960–1995 Our meth-odology is based on the same innovations as those employed in model-ing the U.S economy in chapter 1 The cost of capital plays a central role

in capturing the impact of investment in tangible assets We employ aproduction possibility frontier for each country in order to incorporatethe available data on investment in information technology

Yip and I find that the United States has retained its lead in outputper capita among the G7 countries throughout the period 1960-1995.The United States has also maintained its lead in input per capita, whilerelinquishing the lead in productivity to France Investments in tangibleassets and human capital account for the overwhelming proportion ofeconomic growth in the G7 countries and also explain the predominantshare of international differences in output per capita

The third major theme of this book is the econometric modeling ofeconomic growth in the information age An econometric model of theproduction possibility frontier was the central contribution of “Tran-scendental Logarithmic Production Frontiers,” chapter 4 in volume 1 of

this set, Econometric Modeling of Producer Behavior (2000) This

economet-ric model represents the technology of the U.S economy in my book

with Kun-Young Yun, Lifting the Burden: Tax Reform, the Cost of

Capi-tal, and U.S Economic Growth (2001) We estimate the parameters of this

model from a data set that includes the BEA-IBM constant quality pricefor computers

In “Inflation-Proof Depreciation of Assets,” chapter 8 in Tax Policy and the Cost of Capital (1996), Alan Auerbach and I augment the cost of cap-

ital framework by introducing the marginal effective tax rate The cost

of capital summarizes information about the future consequences of vestment in tangible assets essential for current decisions The marginaleffective tax rate characterizes the consequence of investment decisionsthat is particularly suitable for comparisons among alternative tax poli-cies Efficient capital allocation requires the equalization of marginaleffective tax rates on all assets

in-Yun and I summarize the tax burden on capital income by means

of marginal effective tax rates for all assets and all sectors of the U.S.economy We show that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 significantly re-duced differences in the tax burdens among corporate, non-corporate,and household sectors Differences between short-lived and long-liveddepreciable assets were almost eliminated by this legislation However,substantial differences in marginal effective tax rates between house-hold and corporate sectors still remain These gaps reveal importantopportunities for gains in efficiency through reallocation of capital bymeans of tax reform

In chapter 6 I employ marginal effective tax rates to compare the fects of reforms of capital income taxation in the G7 countries, Australia,and Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s In most countries these reformsreversed decades of erosion of the income tax base to provide incentivesfor saving and investment Efforts were made to equalize tax rates on as-sets within the business sector However, equalization of tax burdens onhousing and business capital has proved to be extraordinarily difficultwithin the framework of the income tax Although reforms have sub-stantially reduced barriers to efficient allocation of capital, importantopportunities for further gains in efficiency remain in all nine countries.Yun and I focus on the determinants of investment in tangible as-sets, including investments in information technology Our econometricmodel combines the production possibility frontier with an econometricrepresentation of preferences This representation was first presented in

ef-“Transcendental Logarithmic Utility Functions,” chapter 1 of Aggregate Consumer Behavior (1997) Yun and I employ our econometric model of

economic growth to simulate the impact of alternative tax reforms We

compare the level of social welfare for each tax reform with welfare in theabsence of reform, translating these welfare comparisons into monetaryterms.

In chapter 8 Mun S Ho and I extend the econometric modeling ofeconomic growth in the information age by incorporating a model ofinvestment in human capital We treat this investment as the output

of the educational sector Inputs of the sector include purchases of termediate goods such as school supplies and energy by educationalinstitutions, the services of tangible assets like buildings and equipmentemployed in these institutions, the services of human capital from teach-ers, and—most important of all—the services of human capital fromstudents

in-A detailed set of growth accounts for the educational sector is tained in my paper with Barbara Fraumeni, “The Output of the Edu-

con-cational Sector,” chapter 7 of Postwar U.S Economic Growth (1995) Our

point of departure is that education is a service industry, but its output

is investment in human capital This is measured as increments to thelifetime incomes of all students enrolled in the educational system Thevalue of investment in education, measured in this way, is roughly equal

to the value of the working time of the entire U.S labor force

Ho and I have evaluated alternative educational policies by forming changes in welfare associated with policy changes into changes

trans-in wealth We consider policies that would trans-increase educational ity” by increasing expenditures and taxes that finance them, while hold-ing educational participation rates constant We also consider policiesthat would hold expenditures and taxes constant, while increasing par-ticipation rates We conclude that enhancing educational quality wouldreduce social welfare, while increasing participation rates would in-crease welfare

“qual-In chapter 7 I describe the barriers to extending econometric models ofeconomic growth to encompass intellectual capital The standard modelfor investment in intellectual capital, formulated by Zvi Griliches (1973),treats this investment as an output of research and development Theservices of intellectual capital are a factor of production, like the services

of tangible assets and human capital in my model with Ho While theoutput of the educational sector can be defined in terms of increments

to lifetime incomes of students, there is no comparable measure forthe output of research and development Pricing this output remains

a major barrier to incorporating intellectual capital into econometricmodels of economic growth

The fourth major theme of this book is the econometric approach for

measuring social welfare in the information age, also the focus of suring Social Welfare (1997) The essential idea is to recover measures of

Mea-individual welfare from an econometric model of aggregate consumerbehavior These are combined into an indicator of welfare that reflectshorizontal and vertical equity, as well as economic efficiency The econo-metric approach is summarized in chapter 1 of the volume, “AggregateConsumer Behavior and the Measurement of Social Welfare,” my pres-idential address to the Econometric Society Daniel Slesnick provides a

much more detailed account in his book, Consumption and Social Welfare

(2001)

Multi-million dollar budgets are involved in statistical reporting ofmeasures of the cost of living, while millions more are spent on mea-sures of poverty, inequality, and the standard of living Unfortunately,these well-established programs give highly misleading results and re-quire a complete overhaul The key to revision of these programs is theeffective exploitation of existing surveys of household consumption Inchapter 9 (“Did We Lose the War on Poverty?”) I give a detailed ex-ample of econometric measures of the incidence of poverty based onconsumption I show that the War on Poverty was a success, while of-ficial estimates based on income rather than consumption purport toshow the reverse

In chapter 10, Slesnick and I present a new measure of the cost ofliving based on the econometric approach to measuring social welfare.This incorporates all the information employed in the Consumer PriceIndex (CPI) but preserves important features of the data ignored inconstructing these price index numbers For example, the econometricapproach captures changes in household spending patterns in response

to changes in prices and total expenditure In addition, it includes theeffects of changes in the demographic structure of the population onaggregate spending patterns

Slesnick and I show that inflation rates over the period 1947–1995 arevirtually identical for the econometric measure of the cost of living andthe CPI Over the first half of the period, the econometric approach gen-erates slightly higher inflation rates, while the reverse is true for thesecond half We find that group cost of living indexes are similar forwhite and nonwhite households, for female-headed and male-headedhouseholds, and for non-elderly households The elderly have experi-enced slightly higher inflation rates since 1973 We recommend indexing

government programs, such as Social Security, by group cost of livingindexes rather than the CPI.

The fifth theme of this volume is econometric general equilibrium

modeling in the information age This is also the subject of Energy, the Environment, and Economic Growth (1998) In chapter 12 Peter J Wilcoxen

and I present an intertemporal general equilibrium model for analyzingthe impact of tax policies in the United States This preserves the keyfeatures of more highly aggregated models, like the one presented inchapter 8 However, Wilcoxen and I have disaggregated the representa-tions of technology and preferences in order to provide a more detailedperspective on the impact of changes in tax policy

One important dimension for disaggregation is to introduce a tinction between commodities and industries in order to model busi-ness responses to tax-induced price changes We also distinguish amonghouseholds by level of wealth and demographic characteristics so that

dis-we can model the responses of households to tax policies as dis-well nally, we model demands for different types of capital services in each

Fi-of thirty-five industrial sectors, as well as the household sector Thesedemands depend on tax policies through measures of the cost of capitalthat incorporate the characteristic features of U.S tax law described in

my book with Yun

We consider the economic impact of substituting a tax on tion for the existing system of income taxes in the United States We firstconsider the Armey-Shelby Flat Tax This proposal levies taxes on thedifference between business receipts and the sum of business purchasesfrom other firms and payrolls Labor income is taxed at the individuallevel An important feature of this proposal is a system of personal ex-emptions that have the effect of setting the marginal rates of taxationequal to zero up to the exempt amount of income The purpose of theexemptions is to introduce progressivity into the rate structure, since av-erage tax rates rise gradually from zero to the flat tax rate as householdincome increases

consump-The second tax reform proposal we consider is the National RetailSales Tax The tax base is the same as in our simulations of the Flat Tax.However, the method of collection is different The Flat Tax preservesthe existing structures of the corporate and individual income taxes butalters the tax base The National Retail Sales Tax eliminates corporateand individual income taxes and relies on retail establishments to collectthe taxes This definition of retail establishments would include realestate developers and providers of professional services, such as legal

and medical services Most important, no personal exemptions would

be provided

The National Retail Sales tax would generate a substantial ation in economic growth, initially through a sharp rise in the laborsupply, since capital stock is fixed in the short run In the longer run

acceler-a higher level of economic acceler-activity would be generacceler-ated by acceler-added cacceler-ap-ital formation By contrast, the Flat Tax would generate a very modestrise in the level of economic activity through increases in the labor sup-ply Capital formation would fall initially and would remain depressed,relative to levels that would prevail in the absence of tax reform

cap-In chapter 11 Richard Garbaccio, Ho, and I present an intertemporalgeneral equilibrium model of the Chinese economy The main features

of the model are the same as those of the U.S model given in Chapter 11

We account for the effects of population growth, capital accumulation,changes in technology, and changing patterns of demand in China Ourmodel of the Chinese economy reflects the fact that plan and marketinstitutions continue to coexist Although the scope of central planninghas been drastically reduced for most commodities, it still affects theallocation of energy In addition, capital markets are largely under gov-ernment control, either directly through the state budget or indirectlythrough the state-owned banking system

Although there is a wide range of forecasts of future emissions of bon dioxide in China, they are unanimous in projecting that China willbecome the largest emitter within a few decades In chapter 11 we showhow carbon taxes could be used to control emissions The extra revenueraised by a carbon tax is offset by reductions in all other taxes The effect

car-of a carbon tax would be to reduce household income and raise the tained earnings of enterprises Spending would shift from consumption

re-to investment and higher investment would lead re-to increases in futureoutput There would a “double dividend” from imposing a carbon tax,namely, reductions in carbon emissions combined with future increases

in output and consumption

An important issue is whether the coexistence of plan and ket institutions reduces the responsiveness of energy demand to pricechanges The price responsiveness of energy demand in the United

mar-States is analyzed in the companion volume, Econometric General librium Modeling (1998) Between 1978 and 1995 the energy-output ratio

Equi-in ChEqui-ina decreased by 55 percent as the ChEqui-inese economy expanded

at double-digit rates Using input-output tables for China for 1987 and

1992, Garbaccio, Ho, and I show in chapter 4 that this can be explained

by declines in energy-output ratios within individual Chinese tries Energy-intensive industries in China actually increased in relativeimportance from 1987 to 1992, raising the Chinese energy-output ratio.Increasing imports of energy-intensive products made a modest con-tribution to the decline in the energy-output ratio We conclude thatdemands for energy are very responsive to the price changes that haveaccompanied the transition to a market economy in China Accordingly,market-based approaches to environmental policy, such as a carbon tax,are not only feasible but also likely to be highly effective.

indus-I conclude that the steadily rising importance of information ogy has created new research opportunities in all areas of economics.Economic historians, led by Alfred Chandler (2000) and Paul David(2000), have made substantial progress in placing the Information Age inhistorical context Chandler traces the development of information tech-nology in America over the past two centuries, establishing persistentfeatures of the advance of this technology David emphasizes similar-ities and differences between the diffusion of information technologyand the diffusion of innovations such as electricity generation

technol-Several models of the semiconductor industry exist, but none cessfully account for the shift from a three-year product cycle to a two-year cycle that took place in 1995 In chapter 1 I show that this is thedriving force behind the resurgence of American economic growth inthe last half of the 1990s A two-year cycle would continue to propelsemiconductor prices on an accelerated downward course and producerapid productivity growth in the IT-producing industries Reversion to

suc-a three-yesuc-ar cycle would reduce this productivity growth to the moremoderate pace that prevailed before 1995

Capital and labor markets have been severely impacted by the vance of information technology Enormous uncertainties surround therelationship between equity valuations and the future growth prospects

ad-of the American economy One theory attributes rising valuations ad-ofequities after 1995 to the accumulation of intangible assets, such as intel-lectual property and organizational capital A competing theory treatsthese high valuations as a bubble that burst in the year 2000 The be-havior of labor markets impacted by the spread of information tech-nology also poses important questions Widening wage differentials byskill have been attributed to computerization of the workplace In thisview high-skilled workers are complementary to IT, while low-skilledworkers are substitutable An alternative explanation is that advances

in information technology are skill-biased, raising the wages of skilledworkers relative to the wages of the unskilled

Finally, the semiconductor and information technology industries areglobal in their scope with an elaborate international division of labor.Where is the evidence of accelerated growth in other leading indus-trialized countries? An important limitation on the availability of thisevidence is the lack of satisfactory price indexes for semiconductors andinformation technology products outside the U.S Several of the mostimportant participants in the information technology industry are thenewly industrialized countries of Asia—Korea, Malaysia, Singapore,and Taiwan What does this portend for growth in developing countrieslike India and China?

As policymakers attempt to fill the widening gaps between the able economic data and the information required for sound policy, thetraditional division of labor between statistical agencies and policymak-ing bodies is breaking down In the meantime monetary policymakersmust set policies without accurate measures of price change Similarly,fiscal policymakers must confront rising levels of uncertainty about fu-ture prospects for economic growth that drastically affect the outlook forfuture tax revenues and government spending Resolving the uncertain-ties about future economic growth arising from advances in informationtechnology is increasingly urgent The practical need for better under-standing of the impact of this technology is already generating a risingtide of research This is sweeping away many older perspectives oneconomic growth, including some that were “new” only a decade ago.Economists are the fortunate beneficiaries of a fresh agenda for researchthat will revitalize economic thinking and enrich economics as a disci-pline

avail-Renate D’Arcangelo of the Editorial Office of the Division of neering and Applied Sciences at Harvard assembled the manuscripts

Engi-in machEngi-ine-readable form, edited them, proofread the final versions,and prepared them for typesetting William Richardson and his asso-ciates provided the index Paul Anagnostopoulos of Windfall Softwaretypeset the manuscript and provided the machine-readable copy forpublication The staff of The MIT Press, especially Elizabeth Murry, JaneMacdonald, Mel Goldsipe, Chryseis Fox, and Michael Sims, was help-ful at every stage of the project Financial support for the publicationwas provided by the Program on Technology and Economic Policy ofthe Kennedy School of Government at Harvard As always, the authorretains sole responsibility for any remaining deficiencies in the volume

1 Dale W Jorgenson 2001 Information Technology and the U.S

Econ-omy American Economic Review 91, no 1 (March): 1–32 Reprinted with

permission

2 Dale W Jorgenson and Kevin J Stiroh 1995 Computers and Growth

Economics of Innovation and New Technology 3, nos 3–4: 295–316

Re-printed with permission from Taylor & Francis Ltd

3 Dale W Jorgenson and Kevin J Stiroh 2000 Raising the Speed Limit:

U.S Economic Growth in the Information Age Brookings Papers on nomic Activity 1 Reprinted with permission.

Eco-4 Richard F Garbaccio, Mun S Ho, and Dale W Jorgenson 1999 Why

Has the Energy Output Ratio Fallen in China? Energy Journal 20, no 3

(July): 6391 Reprinted with permission

5 Dale W Jorgenson and Eric Yip 2000 Whatever Happened to

Pro-ductivity Growth? In New Developments in ProPro-ductivity Analysis, eds.

Charles R Hulten, Edwin R Dean, and Michael J Harper, 509–540.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press © 2000 by the National Bureau

of Economic Research All rights reserved Reprinted with permission

6 Dale W Jorgenson 1993 Tax Reform and the Cost of Capital In Tax Reform and the Cost of Capital: An International Comparison, eds Dale W.

Jorgenson and Ralph Landau, 1–56 Washington, DC: The BrookingsInstitution Reprinted with permission

7 Dale W Jorgenson 1998 Investment and Growth In Econometrics and Economic Theory in the 20th Century, ed Steinar Strom, 204–237 New

York, NY: Cambridge University Press Reprinted with the permission

of Cambridge University Press

8 Mun S Ho and Dale W Jorgenson 2000 Policies to Stimulate Growth

In Using Dynamic General Equilibrium Models for Policy Analysis, eds.

Glenn W Harrison, Svend E H Jensen, Lars H Pedersen, and Thomas

H Rutherford, 223–258 Amsterdam: The Netherlands: North-Holland.Reprinted with permission Elsevier-Science-NL, Sara Burgerhartstraat

25, 1055 KV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

9 Dale W Jorgenson 1998 Did We Lose the War on Poverty? Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no 1 (Winter): 79–86 Reprinted with permis-

sion

10 Dale W Jorgenson and D T Slesnick 1999 Indexing Government

Programs for Changes in the Cost of Living Journal of Business Economics and Statistics Vol 16, No 2, April 1999 pp 170–181 Reprinted with

permission from Journal of Business and Economic Statistics Copyright

1999 by the American Statistical Association All rights reserved

11 Richard F Garbaccio, Mun S Ho, and Dale W Jorgenson 1999

Controlling Carbon Emissions in China Environment and Development

2, part 4 (October), 493–518 Reprinted with permission of Cambridge

University Press

12 Dale W Jorgenson and Peter J Wilcoxen 2002 The Economic Impact

of Fundamental Tax Reform In United States Tax Reform in the 21st tury, eds George R Zodrow and Peter Mieskowki, 55–88 New York, NY:

Cen-Cambridge University Press Reprinted with permission of Cen-CambridgeUniversity Press

and the U.S Economy

Dale W Jorgenson

The resurgence of the American economy since 1995 has outrun all butthe most optimistic expectations Economic forecasting models havebeen seriously off track and growth projections have been revised toreflect a more sanguine outlook only recently.1It is not surprising thatthe unusual combination of more rapid growth and slower inflation

in the 1990s has touched off a strenuous debate among economistsabout whether improvements in America’s economic performance can

be sustained

The starting point for the economic debate is the thesis that the 1990sare a mirror image of the 1970s, when an unfavorable series of “supplyshocks” led to stagflation—slower growth and higher inflation.2In thisview, the development of information technology (IT) is one of a series

of positive, but temporary, shocks The competing perspective is that IT

has produced a fundamental change in the U.S economy, leading to a

permanent improvement in growth prospects.3

The relentless decline in the prices of information technology ment has steadily enhanced the role of IT investment as a source ofAmerican economic growth Productivity growth in IT-producing in-dustries has gradually risen in importance and a productivity revival isnow underway in the rest of the economy Despite differences in meth-odology and data sources, a consensus is building that the remarkablebehavior of IT prices provides the key to the surge in economic growth.Section 1.1 illustrates that the foundation for the American growthresurgence is the development and deployment of semiconductors Thedecline in IT prices is rooted in developments in semiconductor technol-ogy that are widely understood by technologists and economists Thistechnology has found its broadest applications in computing and com-munications equipment, but has reduced the cost of a wide variety ofother products

equip-A substantial acceleration in the IT price decline occurred in 1995,triggered by a much sharper acceleration in the price decline of semi-conductors in 1994 Although the decline in semiconductor prices hasbeen projected to continue for at least another decade, the recent accel-eration could be temporary This can be traced to a shift in the productcycle for semiconductors from three years to two years that took place

in 1995 as the consequence of intensifying competition in markets forsemiconductor products

In section 1.2, I outline a framework for analyzing the role of tion technology in the American growth resurgence Constant qualityprice indexes separate the change in the performance of IT equipmentfrom the change in price for a given level of performance Accurate andtimely computer prices have been part of the U.S National Income andProduct Accounts (NIPA) since 1985 Unfortunately, important infor-mation gaps remain, especially on trends in prices for closely relatedinvestments, such as software and communications equipment.The cost of capital is an essential concept for capturing the economicimpact of information technology prices Swiftly falling prices providepowerful economic incentives for the substitution of IT equipment forother forms of capital and for labor services The rate of the IT pricedecline is a key component of the cost of capital, required for assessingthe impacts of rapidly growing stocks of computers, communicationsequipment, and software

informa-In section 1.3, I analyze the impact of the 1995 acceleration in the mation technology price decline on U.S economic growth I introduce aproduction possibility frontier that encompasses substitutions betweenoutputs of consumption and investment goods, as well as inputs ofcapital and labor services This frontier treats IT equipment as part ofinvestment goods output and the capital services from this equipment

infor-as a component of capital input

Capital input has been the most important source of U.S economicgrowth throughout the postwar period More rapid substitution towardinformation technology has given much additional weight to compo-nents of capital input with higher marginal products The vaulting con-tribution of capital input since 1995 has boosted growth by nearly a fullpercentage point The contribution of IT accounts for more than half ofthis increase Computers have been the predominant impetus to fastergrowth, but communications equipment and software have made im-portant contributions as well

The accelerated information technology price decline signals fasterproductivity growth in IT-producing industries In fact, these industrieshave been the source of most of aggregate productivity growth through-out the 1990s Before 1995 this was due to the decline of productivitygrowth elsewhere in the economy The IT-producing industries have ac-counted for about half the surge in productivity growth since 1995, butfaster growth is not limited to these industries.

I conclude that the decline in IT prices will continue for some time.This will provide incentives for the ongoing substitution of IT for otherproductive inputs Falling IT prices also serve as an indicator of rapidproductivity growth in IT-producing industries However, it would bepremature to extrapolate the recent acceleration in productivity growth

in these industries into the indefinite future, since this depends on thepersistence of a two-year product cycle for semiconductors

In section 1.4, I outline research opportunities created by the opment and diffusion of information technology A voluminous andrapidly expanding business literature is testimony to the massive im-pact of IT on firms and product markets Highest priority must be given

devel-to a better understanding of the markets for semiconducdevel-tors Althoughseveral models of the market for semiconductors already exist, noneexplains the shift from a three-year to a two-year product cycle.The dramatic effects of information technology on capital and labormarkets have already generated a substantial and growing economicliterature, but many important issues remain to be resolved For cap-ital markets the relationship between equity valuations and growthprospects merits much further study For labor markets more research

is needed on investment in information technology and substitutionamong different types of labor

1.1 The Information Age

The development and deployment of information technology is thefoundation of the American growth resurgence A mantra of the “new

economy”—faster, better, cheaper—captures the speed of technological

change and product improvement in semiconductors and the tous and continuing fall in semiconductor prices The price decline hasbeen transmitted to the prices of products that rely heavily on semicon-ductor technology, like computers and telecommunications equipment.This technology has also helped to reduce the cost of aircraft, automo-biles, scientific instruments, and a host of other products

precipi-Modern information technology begins with the invention of the sistor, a semiconductor device that acts as an electrical switch and en-

tran-codes information in binary form A binary digit or bit takes the values

zero and one, corresponding to the off and on positions of a switch.The first transistor, made of the semiconductor germanium, was con-structed at Bell Laboratories in 1947 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics

in 1956 for the inventors—John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and WilliamShockley.4

The next major milestone in information technology was the

co-invention of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments

in 1958 and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959 An grated circuit consists of many, even millions, of transistors that storeand manipulate data in binary form Integrated circuits were originallydeveloped for data storage and retrieval and semiconductor storage

inte-devices became known as memory chips.5

The first patent for the integrated circuit was granted to Noyce Thisresulted in a decade of litigation over the intellectual property rights.The litigation and its outcome demonstrate the critical importance ofintellectual property in the development of information technology.Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for discovery ofthe integrated circuit; regrettably, Noyce died in 1990.6

1.1.1 Moore’s Law

In 1965 Gordon E Moore, then Research Director at Fairchild

Semi-conductor, made a prescient observation, later known as Moore’s Law.7

Plotting data on memory chips, he observed that each new chip tained roughly twice as many transistors as the previous chip and wasreleased within 18–24 months of its predecessor This implied exponen-tial growth of chip capacity at 35–45 percent per year! Moore’s predic-tion, made in the infancy of the semiconductor industry, has trackedchip capacity for thirty-five years He recently extrapolated this trendfor at least another decade.8

con-In 1968 Moore and Noyce founded con-Intel Corporation to speed thecommercialization of memory chips.9 Integrated circuits gave rise tomicroprocessors with functions that can be programmed by software,

known as logic chips Intel’s first general purpose microprocessor was

developed for a calculator produced by Busicom, a Japanese firm Intelretained the intellectual property rights and released the device com-mercially in 1971

The rapidly rising trends in the capacity of microprocessors and age devices illustrate the exponential growth predicted by Moore’s Law.The first logic chip in 1971 had 2,300 transistors, while the Pentium 4 re-leased on November 20, 2000, had 42 million! Over this twenty-nineyear period the number of transistors increased by thirty-four percentper year The rate of productivity growth for the U.S economy duringthis period was slower by two orders of magnitude.

stor-1.1.2 Semiconductor Prices

Moore’s Law captures the fact that successive generations of

semicon-ductors are faster and better The economics of semiconsemicon-ductors begins

with the closely related observation that semiconductors have become

cheaper at a truly staggering rate! Figure 1.1 gives semiconductor price

indexes constructed by Bruce T Grimm (1998) of the Bureau of nomic Analysis (BEA) and employed in the U.S National Income andProduct Accounts since 1996 These are divided between memory chipsand logic chips The underlying detail includes seven types of memorychips and two types of logic chips

Eco-Between 1974 and 1996 prices of memory chips decreased by a factor

of 27,270 times, or at 40.9 percent per year, while the implicit deflator

Figure 1.1

Relative prices of computers and semiconductors, 1959–1999 Note: All price indexes are

divided by the output price index.

for the gross domestic product (GDP) increased by almost 2.7 times,

or 4.6 percent per year! Prices of logic chips, available for the shorter

period 1985 to 1996, decreased by a factor of 1,938 or 54.1 percent per year, while the GDP deflator increased by 1.3 times or 2.6 percent per

year! Semiconductor price declines closely parallel Moore’s Law onthe growth of chip capacity, setting semiconductors apart from otherproducts

Figure 1.1 also reveals a sharp acceleration in the decline of ductor prices in 1994 and 1995 The microprocessor price decline leapt tomore than ninety percent per year as the semiconductor industry shiftedfrom a three-year product cycle to a greatly accelerated two-year cycle

semicon-This is reflected in the 2000 Update of the International Technology Road

Map for Semiconductors,10prepared by a consortium of industry ciations

asso-1.1.3 Constant Quality Price Indexes

The behavior of semiconductor prices is a severe test for the ods used in the official price statistics The challenge is to separate ob-served price changes between changes in semiconductor performanceand changes in price that hold performance constant Achieving thisobjective has required a detailed understanding of the technology, thedevelopment of sophisticated measurement techniques, and the intro-duction of novel methods for assembling the requisite information.Ellen R Dulberger (1993) of IBM introduced a “matched model” in-dex for semiconductor prices A matched model index combines pricerelatives for products with the same performance at different points oftime Dulberger presented constant quality price indexes based on index

meth-number formulas, including the [Irving] Fisher (1922) ideal index used

in the in the U.S national accounts.11The Fisher index is the geometricaverage of the familiar Laspeyres and Paasche indexes

W Erwin Diewert (1976) defined a superlative index number as an index that exactly replicates a flexible representation of the underlying

technology (or preferences) A flexible representation provides a order approximation to an arbitrary technology (or preferences) A A.Konus and S S Byushgens (1926) first showed that the Fisher idealindex is superlative in this sense Laspeyres and Paasche indexes are notsuperlative and fail to capture substitutions among products in response

second-to price changes accurately

Grimm (1998) combined matched model techniques with hedonicmethods, based on an econometric model of semiconductor prices at

different points of time A hedonic model gives the price of a ductor product as a function of the characteristics that determine per-formance, such as speed of processing and storage capacity A constantquality price index isolates the price change by holding these character-istics of semiconductors fixed.

semicon-Beginning in 1997, the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) rated a matched model price index for semiconductors into the ProducerPrice Index (PPI) and since then the national accounts have relied ondata from the PPI Reflecting long-standing BLS policy, historical datawere not revised backward Semiconductor prices reported in the PPIprior to 1997 do not hold quality constant, failing to capture the rapidsemiconductor price decline and the acceleration in 1994

Mainframe computers, as well as PCs, have come to rely heavily onlogic chips for central processing and memory chips for main memory.However, semiconductors account for less than half of computer costsand computer prices have fallen much less rapidly than semiconductorprices Precise measures of computer prices that hold product qualityconstant were introduced into the NIPA in 1985 and the PPI during the1990s The national accounts now rely on PPI data, but historical data

on computers from the PPI, like the PPI data on semiconductors, do nothold quality constant

Gregory C Chow (1967) pioneered the use of hedonic techniques forconstructing a constant quality index of computer prices in research con-ducted at IBM Chow documented price declines at more than twentypercent per year during 1960–1965, providing an initial glimpse of theremarkable behavior of computer prices.13In 1985 the Bureau of Eco-nomic Analysis incorporated constant quality price indexes for comput-ers and peripheral equipment constructed by Rosanne Cole, Y C Chen,

Joan A Barquin-Stolleman, Ellen R Dulberger, Nurthan Helvacian, andJames H Hodge (1986) of IBM into the NIPA Jack E Triplett (1986) dis-cussed the economic interpretation of these indexes, bringing the rapiddecline of computer prices to the attention of a very broad audience.The BEA-IBM constant quality price index for computers provoked

a heated exchange between BEA and Edward F Denison (1989), one ofthe founders of national accounting methodology in the 1950s and head

of the national accounts at BEA from 1979 to 1982 Denison sharply tacked the BEA-IBM methodology and argued vigorously against the in-troduction of constant quality price indexes into the national accounts.14Allan Young (1989), then Director of BEA, reiterated BEA’s rationale forintroducing constant quality price indexes

at-Dulberger (1989) presented a more detailed report on her research

on the prices of computer processors for the BEA-IBM project Speed

of processing and main memory played central roles in her model.Triplett (1989) provided an exhaustive survey of research on hedonicprice indexes for computers Robert J Gordon (1989, 1990) gave analternative model of computer prices and identified computers andcommunications equipment, along with commercial aircraft, as assetswith the highest rates of price decline

Figure 1.2 gives BEA’s constant quality index of prices of computersand peripheral equipment and its components, including mainframes,

Figure 1.2

Relative prices of computers, communications, software, and services 1948–1999 Note:

All price indexes are divided by the output price index.

PCs, storage devices, other peripheral equipment, and terminals Thedecline in computer prices follows the behavior of semiconductor pricespresented in figure 1.1, but in much attenuated form The 1995 accel-eration in the computer price decline parallels the acceleration in thesemiconductor price decline that resulted from the changeover from athree-year product cycle to a two-year cycle in 1995.

1.1.5 Communications Equipment and Software

Communications technology is crucial for the rapid development anddiffusion of the Internet, perhaps the most striking manifestation ofinformation technology in the American economy.15 Kenneth Flamm(1989) was the first to compare the behavior of computer prices and theprices of communications equipment He concluded that the commu-nications equipment prices fell only a little more slowly than computerprices Gordon (1990) compared Flamm’s results with the official priceindexes, revealing substantial bias in the official indexes

Communications equipment is an important market for tors, but constant quality price indexes cover only a portion of thisequipment Switching and terminal equipment rely heavily on semicon-ductor technology, so that product development reflects improvements

semiconduc-in semiconductors Grimm’s (1997) constant quality price semiconduc-index for tal telephone switching equipment, given in figure 1.3, was incorporatedinto the national accounts in 1996 The output of communications ser-vices in the NIPA also incorporates a constant quality price index forcellular phones

digi-Substantial communications investment takes the form of the mission gear, connecting data, voice, and video terminals to switchingequipment Technologies such as fiber optics, microwave broadcast-ing, and communications satellites have progressed at rates that outruneven the dramatic pace of semiconductor development An example isdense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), a technology thatsends multiple signals over an optical fiber simultaneously Installation

trans-of DWDM equipment, beginning in 1997, has doubled the transmissioncapacity of fiber optic cables every 6–12 months.16

Both software and hardware are essential for information ogy and this is reflected in the large volume of software expendi-tures The eleventh comprehensive revision of the national accounts,released by BEA on October 27, 1999, reclassified computer software

technol-as investment.17Before this important advance, business expenditures