MISALLOCATION OF RESOURCES, TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY, AND THE CLEANSING HYPOTHESIS

Abstract

Imperfections in the credit market can hamper the flow of factors from less productive to more productive firms and result in a lower aggregate total factor productivity (TFP). Depth of such misallocation will depend on per capita income, the level of imperfections in the credit market, and the distribution of entrepreneurial productivity. Under some parameter configurations, we find that per capita income and TFP may affect each other so that an economic boom may cause higher resource misallocation, lower TFP, and economic recession. At the same time, an economic recession may have a “cleansing effect” on TFP leading to a lower resource misallocation, higher TFP, and economic boom. In other words, economic success may breed the failure and the failure can become a precondition for success so that the boom-bust cycles in resource misallocation, TFP, and per capita income may become endogenous.