Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Spanish paradox: demand growth with productivity stagnation

The Spanish paradox: demand growth with productivity stagnation This paper studies one of the most paradoxical facts of the Spanish economic growth during the period 1982–2007: high growth of investment and aggregate demand accompanied by the stagnation of labor productivity, especially from 1994.Design/methodology/approachThe authors propose two hypotheses: first, that the productive structure neutralized the mechanisms that link investment with productivity, essentially due to the low capital efficiency of the job-creating sectors (JCs); and consequently, investment drove production almost exclusively through employment, generating a trade-off between employment and productivity.FindingsThe econometric results find evidence in favor of both hypotheses applying a time-series methodology (ARIMA) to EU KLEMS data for a period of 25 years and 25 industries of the Spanish economy.Originality/valueThe first contribution of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the phenomenon from a perspective that combines elements of productive supply and aggregate demand, representing a novel contribution to the specialized literature. In addition, the authors show how the Kaldor-Verdoorn law could be neutralized due to employment creation (Okun's law) and the presence of a productivity-employment trade-off. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Economic Studies Emerald Publishing

The Spanish paradox: demand growth with productivity stagnation

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/the-spanish-paradox-demand-growth-with-productivity-stagnation-YfT9ZaYw2u

References (34)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
0144-3585
DOI
10.1108/jes-10-2019-0459
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This paper studies one of the most paradoxical facts of the Spanish economic growth during the period 1982–2007: high growth of investment and aggregate demand accompanied by the stagnation of labor productivity, especially from 1994.Design/methodology/approachThe authors propose two hypotheses: first, that the productive structure neutralized the mechanisms that link investment with productivity, essentially due to the low capital efficiency of the job-creating sectors (JCs); and consequently, investment drove production almost exclusively through employment, generating a trade-off between employment and productivity.FindingsThe econometric results find evidence in favor of both hypotheses applying a time-series methodology (ARIMA) to EU KLEMS data for a period of 25 years and 25 industries of the Spanish economy.Originality/valueThe first contribution of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the phenomenon from a perspective that combines elements of productive supply and aggregate demand, representing a novel contribution to the specialized literature. In addition, the authors show how the Kaldor-Verdoorn law could be neutralized due to employment creation (Okun's law) and the presence of a productivity-employment trade-off.

Journal

Journal of Economic Studies – Emerald Publishing

Published: Apr 27, 2021

Keywords: Spanish economic growth; Productivity; Investment; Productive structure; Kaldor-Verdoorn; Okun's law; E12; E22; E24

There are no references for this article.