by Bernie Sanders and the Verdoorn law Reading the different reactions, critiques and ‘analyses’ of Gerald Friedman’s calculations on the long term effects of implementing the Sanders’ program, it seem to me that what it basically burns down to is if the Verdoorn law is operative or not. Estimating the impact of Sanders’ program Friedman writes (p. 13): Higher demand for labor is also associated with an increase in labor productivity and this accounts for about half of the increase in economic growth under the Sanders program. Obviously, that’s a view that Christina Romer and David Romer (p. 8) don’t share: Friedman … argues that as demand expansion raised output, endogenous productivity growth … would raise productive capacity by enough to prevent it from constraining output … The evidence that productivity growth would surge as a result of a demand-driven boom is weak. The fact that there is a correlation between output growth and productivity growth is not surprising. Periods of rapid productivity growth, such as the 1990s, are naturally also periods of rapid output growth. But this does not tell us that an extended period of rapid output growth resulting from demand stimulus would cause sustained high productivity growth … In the standard mainstream economic analysis, a demand expansion may very well raise measured productivity — in the short run.
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Bernie Sanders and the Verdoorn law
Reading the different reactions, critiques and ‘analyses’ of Gerald Friedman’s calculations on the long term effects of implementing the Sanders’ program, it seem to me that what it basically burns down to is if the Verdoorn law is operative or not.
Estimating the impact of Sanders’ program Friedman writes (p. 13):
Higher demand for labor is also associated with an increase in labor productivity and this accounts for about half of the increase in economic growth under the Sanders program.
Obviously, that’s a view that Christina Romer and David Romer (p. 8) don’t share:
Friedman … argues that as demand expansion raised output, endogenous productivity growth … would raise productive capacity by enough to prevent it from constraining output … The evidence that productivity growth would surge as a result of a demand-driven boom is weak. The fact that there is a correlation between output growth and productivity growth is not surprising. Periods of rapid productivity growth, such as the 1990s, are naturally also periods of rapid output growth. But this does not tell us that an extended period of rapid output growth resulting from demand stimulus would cause sustained high productivity growth …
In the standard mainstream economic analysis, a demand expansion may very well raise measured productivity — in the short run. But in the long run, expansionary demand policy measures cannot lead to sustained higher productivity and output levels.
In some non-standard heterodox analyses, however, labour productivity growth is often described as a function of output growth. The rate of technical progress varies directly with the rate of growth according to the Verdoorn law. Growth and productivity is in this view highly demand-determined not only in the short run but also in the long run.
Given that the Verdoorn law is operative, Sanders’ policy could actually lead to increases in productivity and growth. Living in a world permeated by genuine Keynes-type uncertainty, we can, of course, not with any greater precision forecast how great those effects would be.
So, the nodal point is — has the Verdoorn Law been validated or not in empirical studies?
There have been hundreds of studies that have tried to answer that question, and as could be imagined, the answers differ. The law has been investigated with different econometric methods (time-series, IV, OLS, ECM, cointegration, etc.). The statistical and econometric problems are enormous (especially when it comes to the question, highlighted by Romer & Romer, on the direction of causality). Given this, however, most studies on the country level do confirm that the Verdoorn law holds — United States included. Most of the studies are for the period before the subprime crisis of 2006/2007, but if anything, it is more in line with Friedman than Romer & Romer.
Oh, dear.