Some aspects of the econometric estimation of production functions are discussed, focussing primarily on the issue of simultaneity and reviewing the stream of criticisms of Douglas' work and the response to it. We look in particular at the work that uses panel data on micro data for plants or...

We estimate separate productions functions for approximately 450 manufacturing firms each in France and the United States and for 850 manufacturing firms in Japan, covering the 13 year period 1967-1979, and focus on the wide dispersion in the estimated slope coefficients in all three countries....

We compute rates of growth in labor productivity during the 1973-80 period for samples of individual manufacturing firms, in both Japan and the U.S., and relate them to differences in the rates of growth in their capital-labor ratios and in their intensities of R&D effort. Japanese firms spent...

This paper compares and analyzes the growth of productivity in the manufacturing industries and firms in France and the U.S. based on newly assembled comparable data sets in both countries. Three explanations of the recent productivity slowdown are reviewed: shortfall in physical investment,...

This paper analyzes the relationship between output, employment, and physical and R&D capital, for a sample of 133 large U.S. firms covering the years 1966 through 197. In the cross sectional dimension, there is a strong relationship between firm productivity and the level of its R&D...

This paper reviews the literature on the relationship of economic growth to the education levels of the labor force. The emphasis is on Ben-Porath's contribution to some of the issues in this field: the endogeneity of schooling, the role of the public sector as an `absorber' of educated labor,...

This note reviews the history of the 'residual,' from its earliest articulation in Copeland (1937) to its codification in Solow (1957), describing the various earlier contributions by Tinbergen, Stigler, Schmookler, Fabricant, Kendrick, Abramovitz and others

R&D spillovers are, potentially, a major source of endogenous growth in various recent "New Growth Theory" models. This paper reviews the basic model of R&D spillovers and then focuses on the empirical evidence for their existence and magnitude. It reviews the older empirical literature with...

This survey reviews the growing use of patent data in economic analysis. After describing some of the main characteristics of patents and patent data, it focuses on the use of patents as an indicator of technological change. Cross-sectional and time-series studies of the relationship of patents...

This paper reviews the historical data on patenting in the United States with special reference to the last 20 years and their potential relation, if any, to the recent productivity slowdown. Two Points are made: Patents are not a "constant-yardstick" indicator of either inventive input or...