Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Nov, 2023, Volume 91, Issue 6

A Comment on: “Low Interest Rates, Market Power, and Productivity Growth”

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20621
p. 2457-2461

Craig A. Chikis, Jonathan Goldberg, David López‐Salido

Using an endogenous growth model, Liu, Mian, and Sufi (2022) (LMS) show that a decline in the interest rate can lead to a fall in productivity growth and a rise in leader‐laggard productivity gaps and firm profits. We identify two issues in their quantitative analysis of transition dynamics: a time‐scale error and the omission of composition terms in calculating productivity growth along the transition to a new balanced growth path. Correcting the time‐scale error and including the composition terms, the decline in the interest rate that LMS study leads to a large and protracted productivity boom lasting about 20 years. In addition, the average leader‐laggard gap grows much more slowly than reported in their paper. We also point out an issue in their quantitative analysis of steady‐state profit shares. These issues are related to the quantitative exercises, and do not affect the key theoretical contributions of LMS.


Full Content Original Article

Supplemental Material

Supplement to "A Comment on: Low Interest Rates, Market Power, and Productivity Growth"

Craig A. Chikis, Jonathan Goldberg, and David López-Salido

The replication package for this paper is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8187691. The Journal checked the data and codes included in the package for their ability to reproduce the results in the paper.

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