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Two Views of Capital Hours

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Shiftwork, Capital Hours and Productivity Change

Abstract

What is the role of capital in explaining the growth of output? A common view used to be that increases in output over time could be explained largely by increases in employment and in capital per worker, but post-World War II research changed all that. In a growth-accounting framework, increases in capital per hour of labor input leave a good part of the output rise unexplained. Not only does the contribution of capital to growth appear much smaller than had been thought, but capital of the conventional kind-tangible capital in the form of buildings, equipment, inventories, and land-seems to have acquired a lesser role at the same time that other types of capital-intangible capital like human capital and what is referred to as “the stock of knowledge”-have become more prominent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, USA

    Murray F. Foss

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  1. Murray F. Foss
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Foss, M.F. (1997). Two Views of Capital Hours. In: Shiftwork, Capital Hours and Productivity Change. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6201-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6201-6_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7843-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-6201-6

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