TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hulten,Charles R.
TI  - Growth Accounting
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15341
PY  - 2009
Y2  - September 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15341
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15341.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Charles R. Hulten
Department of Economics
University of Maryland
Room 3105, Tydings Hall
College Park, MD 20742
Tel: 301/405-3549
Fax: 301/405-3542
E-Mail: hulten@econ.umd.edu
AB  - Incomes per capita have grown dramatically over the past two centuries, but the increase has been unevenly spread across time and across the world.  Growth accounting is the principal quantitative tool for understanding this phenomenon, and for assessing the prospects for further increases in living standards.  This paper sets out the general growth accounting model, with its methods and assumptions, and traces its evolution from a simple index-number technique that decomposes economic growth into capital-deepening and productivity components, to a more complex account of the growth process.  In the more complex account, capital and productivity interact, both are endogenous, and quality change in inputs and output matters.  New developments in micro-level productivity analysis are also reviewed, and the long-standing question of net versus gross output as the appropriate indicator of economic growth is addressed.
ER  -