Capital Allocation and Productivity in South Europe*
利用1999-2012年西班牙制造业企业数据，发现资本回报离散度上升、资本错配导致生产率损失增加，并建立模型说明欧元趋同带来的利率下降如何通过资本流向高净值但非高生产率企业降低全要素生产率。
Abstract Starting in the early 1990s, countries in southern Europe experienced low productivity growth alongside declining real interest rates. We use data for manufacturing firms in Spain between 1999 and 2012 to document a significant increase in the dispersion of the return to capital across firms, a stable dispersion of the return to labor, and a significant increase in productivity losses from capital misallocation over time. We develop a model with size-dependent financial frictions that is consistent with important aspects of firms’ behavior in production and balance sheet data. We illustrate how the decline in the real interest rate, often attributed to the euro convergence process, leads to a significant decline in sectoral total factor productivity as capital inflows are misallocated toward firms that have higher net worth but are not necessarily more productive. We show that similar trends in dispersion and productivity losses are observed in Italy and Portugal but not in Germany, France, and Norway.