Closing remarks by Gilbert Cette

1. Productivity growth and innovation in the long run OECD – NBER Conference 25 – 26 September 2014 Summing up
Gilbert Cette
Banque de France and AMSE

2. Summing up
Very rich conference on productivity
Difficult task to propose a summing up
Gives the state of the knowledge and of the debate
on many aspects of this topic:
Yesterday, long-term productivity trends
•In the past and in the future
•Impact of certain ‘headwinds’ (as by Gordon):
Inequalities, sustainability…
Today, main drivers of productivity
•Technical progress and knowledge diffusion
•Organisational changes
•Network issues

3. Summing up
Not going to propose a summary
Propose to raise some important points coming from presentations and debates:
What, from my point of view…
… was consensual
… was not consensual
… other points, for future conferences?

4. Summing up
What was consensual
Importance of sustainability dimensions of GDP and productivity growth
•Growing inequalities and associated decreasing social mobility (session 2, William and Andrew)
•Climate change risks and consequences (session 3, Michael and Frederik)
 But… have to consider that…
•In growth and productivity research, usually, or these dimensions are the central topic of the research, or they are just mentioned
•In growth and productivity conference, they get some specific sessions
•They are not really included in research on long period

5. Summing up
What was consensual
Numerous drivers of productivity
•Human capital (session 1, Francesco)
•Speed of adoption of technological innovation (session 1, Diego)
•Aglomeration (session 6, William and Gilles)
•Between firms, from factor allocation (section 7, Chad and Ufuk)
•At the firm level, management, organisation, skill… (session 5, Nicholas and Luis). New and dynamic field of research
All these factors are influenced by institutions
No policy recommandation!!! But…

6. Summing up
What was not consensual
The future of productivity growth (Session 4, Robert and Joel)
•The debate concerned essentially the US economy, but the facts concerns all developped countries

7. Average annual growth rate of labour productivity per hour Smoothed indicator Whole economy – 1891-2012 – In % Source : Bergeaud, Cette and Lecat (2014)

8. Summing up
What was not consensual
The future of productivity growth (Session 4, Robert and Joel)
•The debate concerned essentially the US economy, but the facts concerns all developped countries
•The problem is not completely the same for non-US countries: They do not benefit completely from the ICT revolution

9. ICT capital coefficient (x100), at current prices (Ratio of ICT capital stock to GDP in current prices) Scope: The whole economy – 1970-2013 Source: Cette, Clerc and Bresson (2014)

10. Summing up
What was not consensual
The future of productivity growth (Session 4, Robert and Joel)
•The debate concerned essentially the US economy, but the facts concerns all developped countries
•The problem is not completely the same for non-US countries: They do not benefit completely from the ICT revolution
•Why?
Here again, economic policy is not useless!

11. Summing up
Other points, for next conferences? Macro aspects
The question of the cost of the crisis, in terms of productivity
Impact on level? Trend?
Transitory? Permanent?
Betweeen productivity and GDP per capita, interveine several variables as participation rates
What we currently observe on this field is completely the opposate to what was observed after the first oil shock (Prescott 2004, …):
Divergence between
Europe : increase
US : decrease

12. Summing up
Very rich and stimulating conference
Useful to debate on productivity topics:
still puzzles and questions
Thanks a lot to the organisers
Hope that other conferences like this one will be regularly organised