seminar participants at a number of institutions and conferences. We also thank several anonymous referees. This is a very substantially revised version of papers previously circulated as Federal Reserve International Finance
This paper describes a real-time, quarterly growth-accounting database for the U.S. business sector. The data on inputs, including capital, are used to produce a quarterly series on total factor productivity (TFP). In addition, the dataset implements an adjustment for variations in factor utilization-labor effort and the workweek of capital. The utilization adjustment follows Basu, Fernald, and Kimball (BFK, 2006) as updated in Basu, Fernald, Fisher, and Kimball (BFFK, 2013). Using relative prices and input-output information, the series are also decomposed into separate TFP and utilization-adjusted TFP series for equipment investment (including consumer durables) and "consumption" (defined as business output less equipment and consumer durables).
Does the positive correlation between infrastructure and productivity reflect causation? If so, in which direction? I find that when growth in roads (the largest component of infrastructure) changes, productivity growth changes disproportionately in U.S. industries with more vehicles. That vehicle-intensive industries benefit more from road-building suggests that roads are productive. At the margin, however, road investments do not appear unusually productive. Intuitively, the interstate system was highly productive, but a second one would not be. Road-building thus explains much of the productivity slowdown through a one-time, unrepeatable productivity boost in the 1950's and 1960's. (JEL E62, O47, R53)
for helpful comments and conversations. I also thank seminar participants at several institutions, as well as other colleagues at the San Francisco Fed. I thank Titan Alon, Kuni Natsuki and Bing Wang for excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
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