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To promote transparency and provide information, the Federal Planning Bureau regularly publishes the methods and results of its works. The publications are organised in different series, such as Outlooks, Working Papers and Planning Papers. Some reports can be consulted here, along with the Short Term Update newsletters that were published until 2015. You can search our publications by theme, publication type, author and year.
This Working Paper presents the different methodologies currently used to construct a volume index of capital services and analyzes the effects of methodological changes on capital services and total factor productivity estimates for Belgium over the period 1970-2004. The measurement of capital services is realized in two steps. First, productive capital stocks have to be estimated for each type of asset. Two methodologies are generally used: the geometric and the hyperbolic profile. Secondly, these stocks are aggregated, using the user costs of capital (exante or ex-post approach) as weights to derive an overall index. For the economy as a whole and the entire period, under an ex-post approach, the volume indices of capital services estimated with a hyperbolic age-efficiency profile grow at a higher rate than the indices estimated with a geometric profile. This general conclusion is, however, not observed in every sector. Under an ex-ante approach, the different volume indices are quite similar for the whole economy, even if the indices grow generally at a slightly higher rate in the case of a geometric pattern. A higher growth rate of the volume indices generates a higher capital contribution and, consequently, a lower TFP contribution. Over long periods of time, the different TFP estimates are relatively similar. Over shorter periods, the different methodologies generate more significant variations in the TFP contribution.
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Themes
Structural studies > Productivity and long-term growth
JEL
Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs > Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data [C81]
Microeconomics > Production and Organizations > Production; Capital and Total Factor Productivity; Capacity [D24]
Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > General [O40]
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