The Productivity Slowdown: Is a Growing Unmeasurable Sector the Culprit?
检验了服务业占比上升导致产出衡量误差加大、进而解释1970年代初生产率放缓的假说，发现该假说在数量上不显著，即使采用最有利的假设，服务业占比上升对衡量误差的影响也很小。
The productivity slowdown of the early 1970s continues to puzzle economists. A frequent explanation of this puzzle is that mismeasurement of output has worsened enough to help account for the apparent shortfall of output growth. Griliches (1994) highlighted one channel through which this worsening measurement could occur. He raised the possibility that—because output growth in the service sector likely is undermeasured—the rising share of services has led to greater undermeasurement of overall economic growth. This paper demonstrates that this argument is of little quantitative significance. Even under assumptions most favorable to the hypothesis, the rising share of services has had only a small impact on measurement error. These results—along with evidence from Baily and Gordon (1988)—make mismeasurement of output an improbable explanation for the productivity slowdown in aggregate data. © 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology