بیکاری و رشد بهره وری: تجزیه و تحلیل تجربی در مدل تکمیل شده سولو

Does a country's level of unemployment have an impact on the long-run growth rate? Incorporating unemployment into a generalised Solow-type growth model yields some answers. In the traditional Solow model, unemployment has no long-run influence on the growth rate and the level of productivity. The long-run level of productivity is reduced if higher unemployment leads to less formal education or to less learning-by-doing. If we allow for endogenous growth, unemployment reduces long-run productivity growth. Using panel data from 13 OECD countries from 1960 to 1990, we find evidence that an increase in unemployment scales down the long-run level of productivity.

Does a country's level of unemployment have an impact on the long-run growth rate? Persistently high unemployment rates in Europe over the last two decades indicate that unemployment is, at least to a large extent, not a pure business cycle phenomenon. This implies a continuing squandering of labour and of human capital in most European countries. Hence, it seems reasonable to ask, if given levels of unemployment influence long-run productivity growth or the long-run level of productivity itself. Unemployment is a severe problem in Europe, but not in the US. The decline in productivity growth has, however, been stronger in the US over the last decades of the 20th century. Between 1979 and 1997 the average rate of unemployment in the US was 6.7% and the average growth rate of labour productivity was 0.9%. In Europe the average rate of unemployment was 9.3% and the average growth rate of labour productivity was 2.2%. These figures might indicate a potential trade-off between unemployment and productivity growth. However, if we look at simple time series plots, the evidence lends at best mild support to this suspicion. Fig. 1 shows the development of unemployment and productivity growth in Europe and in the US between 1960 and 1997. It is striking that there has been an increase in the rate of unemployment that goes along with a decline of productivity growth in Europe as well as in the USA.Bean (1997) and Gordon (1997) argue that this time series evidence shows a causal link running from unemployment to growth.1Section 2 formalises this link by introducing unemployment into an augmented Solow growth model. The model nests the standard Solow model as well as endogenous growth models as special cases. Our main argument is that unemployment reduces production and income and thereby the accumulation of physical and human capital via a reduction of savings, spending on education and learning-by-doing. Therefore, unemployment might impinge negatively on productivity and productivity growth in the long run, as in Bean and Pissarides (1993). In 3 and 4 we put our theoretical model to an empirical test, where Section 3 discusses the empirical specification and Section 4 presents the results of our estimates using a dynamic panel data framework. The main finding is that unemployment indeed reduces the level of productivity: Taken at face value our results suggest that if unemployment would have remained at the level of 1960 than productivity today would be roughly 10% higher than it is. Section 5 concludes.

To answer the question whether unemployment influences productivity in the long run we incorporate equilibrium unemployment into a generalised augmented Solow-type growth model. The model shows that in a neoclassical framework an increase in equilibrium unemployment reduces the long-run level of productivity if unemployment has an effect on labour efficiency — through either formal education or learning-by-doing. In an endogenous growth frame work unemployment reduces productivity growth. Using data for 13 OECD countries within a dynamic panel data framework we find supportive evidence for the conditional convergence hypothesis which implies neoclassical growth and for a negative impact of the level of unemployment on the level of productivity. However, our empirical analysis does not provide any evidence for an effect of formal schooling on productivity. In terms of our model the negative effect of an increase in unemployment on the level of productivity is therefore due to reduced savings, capital accumulation and learning-by-doing.