Capital Stock Contribution to Productivity of the Argentine Economy During the 1990's

ARIEL COREMBERG

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Ciclo de Seminarios del Departamento de Economía-UDESA; 2002

Universidad de San Andrés

The present work is aimed at evaluating the contribution of capital stock to theproductivity of the Argentine economy during the 1990´s.The capital stock is estimated according to the recommendations of the recenteconomic literature about using hedonic valuation method and the traditionalpermanent inventory method with several types of standard depreciation methodsusing a high disagregate data. The level of capital stock estimation is foundedmacroeconomic consistent and its average growth is apparently independent of thetypes of age efficiency profile.The growth of the Solow´s residual or TFP in Argentina was slightly negative forthe 1990´s. This trend tends to zero if measurements are made through Chain indicesadjusted by the "quality" of production factors, even though only the reproductivecapital stock is considered.Given the relevance and dynamism of capital stock services for growthprocesses, an accurate measurement of this variable is critical. Thus, heterogeneityacquires more relevance, as well as the type of weights and the index numbers used toestimate its contribution to output.The effects on the growth accounting of the flexibility aggregation of capitalstock and salaried and non-salaried labor sub-aggregates has proved relatively neutralwith respect to the efficiency profile used for estimating the capital stock.According to these results, evidences may indicate that during the nineties therewas no productivity gain in the sense of Solow in Argentina. In any case, it may beinferred that the profile of economic growth was of the extensive type based on theaccumulation of capital rather than disembodied technological progress or nonpecuniaryspillovers.