Introduction to the symposium of presentations from the Plenary Sessions of the 2010 North American Productivity Workshop

Abstract

The Plenary Sessions of the 2010 North American Productivity Workshop (NAPW) were particularly noteworthy as they brought together a remarkable collection of scholars whose contribution to productivity and efficiency has been seminal and classic as well as modern and innovative. The presentations were first rate. This symposium is composed of the presentations given in the Plenary Sessions. The idea of such a symposium was not only sparked by the presentations of remarkably gifted scholars, but also by the large number of conference participants whose conversations with us after the presentations indicated that something special was going on in the Plenary Sessions: that the participants were struck by the singular quality and uniqueness of the scholarship but also by the reverence the presenters commanded and the awe in which they were held by the participants. The first Plenary Session was meant to frame the conference and to set its tone. The title of the session was ‘‘Unresolved Research Topics in Productivity’’ and the presenters were Professors Erwin Diewert and Dale Jorgenson. Professor Jorgenson began his talk, ‘‘Information Technology and U.S. Productivity Growth: Evidence from a Prototype Industry Production Account’’ by pointing out that the NAPW’s long time friend and participant John W. Kendrick, to whom the 2010 NAPW was dedicated in memoriam, had been a proponent and strong advocate of the data collection protocols that Professor Jorgenson was able help put in place and which currently provide researchers with disaggregated production data that seamlessly links productivity analysis to the National Accounts. Professor Jorgenson’s presentation and the paper in the symposium co-authored with Mun S Ho and Jon Samuels presented the new data set on U.S. productivity growth covering 70 industries for the period 1960–2007 based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), providing much greater detail on the service industries. The second presentation in the first Plenary Session was given by Erwin Diewert and was entitled ‘‘Measuring Productivity in the Public Sector: Some Conceptual Problems.’’ Professor Diewert pointed out a number of issues that have perplexed productivity researchers when attempting to measure the contribution of government services, which are either free or provided at highly subsidized prices, to the many sectors of the economy. Not only were the problems detailed in his presentation but general methods to measure the price and quantity of nonmarket government outputs were provided. Specifically, if quantity information on nonmarket outputs is available then either price valuations relying on purchaser based valuations or on cost based valuations can be used. If nonmarket outputs quantity information is not available then growth accounting procedures can be uses to indirectly control for the contribution of government services in productivity growth. We would like to thank the major financial supporters of the 2010 North American Productivity Workshop, held at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University: the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Rice University School of Social Sciences. We would also like to thank Accumyn Consulting, Stata Corporation, and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University for financial and in kind support for the conference.