Further Model-Based Estimates of U.S. Total Manufacturing Production Capital and Technology, 1949-2005

• Activity Number: 631
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 4, 2011 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Peter Zadrozny and Baoline Chen*+
• Companies: Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Keywords: productivity analysis ; time-series model estimation ; Kalman filter estimation of unobserved variables

Abstract

Production capital and technology (i.e., total factor productivity) in U.S. manufacturing are fundamental for understanding output and productivity growth of the U.S. economy but are unobserved at this level of aggregation and must be estimated before being used in empirical analysis. Previously, we developed a method for estimating production capital and technology based on an estimated dynamic structural economic model and applied the method using annual SIC data for 1947-1997 to estimate production capital and technology in U.S. total manufacturing. In this paper, we update this work by reestimating the model and production capital and technology using annual SIC data for 1949-2001 and partly overlapping NAICS data for 1987-2005.