Tristan-Pierre Maury

Determinants of Productivity Per Employee: An Empirical Estimation Using Panel Data

Two different approaches are used in this article to study productivity per employee: the determinants of its growth rate in the 1990s are first examined, and then the determinants of its level, using a more structural approach. ICT are shown to have a positive and significant effect on both growth rates and levels of productivity. This result is consistent with that of Gust and Marquez (2002), although the sample of countries is larger and GMM are used. In both sections of the paper, the employment rate and productivity exhibit a significant negative relationship, arising from the concentration of employment on the most productive members of the workforce. Indicators of financial depth and price stability are found to be significant.

The Breaks in Per Capita Productivity Trends in a Number of Industrial Countries

The purpose of this article is to study the trends in per capita productivity in several major industrialised countries. The analysis is first based on annual data over a long period spanning the entire 20th century for the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Productivity trends are then studied over a shorter period, using quarterly data, for the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Japan and the Netherlands. There are already a large number of studies of this kind, but they are too often focused on presenting average productivity growth rates for given periods chosen on an ad hoc basis. In this article, we use a robust statistical method to endogenously identify possible breaks in per capita productivity trends. This method, developed by Bai and Perron (1998), brings out the following salient features: – in the United States, per capita productivity growth accelerated following the trend break at the start of the 1920s, then slowed down at the end of the 1960s. This finding is in line with the “Big Wave” concept developed by Gordon (1999, 2002) to describe the trends in US productivity growth throughout the 20 th century. – French and UK productivity started catching up with that in the United States around the end of the Second World War. – Most of the countries under review recorded slower trend productivity growth in the first half of the 1970s. In the United States, this break occurred in 1966. This finding differs from that of other existing analyses, which point to 1974. – Trend productivity growth in Europe and Japan slowed in the 1990s, whereas US productivity gained momentum over the same period.

Evaluating the Fit of Sticky Price Models

We examine the effects of introducing investment adjustment costs, variable capital utilization, indivisible labor, and material goods into a sticky price model subject to a cash-in-advance constraint. Combining these elements, the model overcomes the main criticisms traditionally addressed to this class of models. Under Watson (1993) goodness-of-fit criterion, the model does a very good job at replicating the dynamics of output, hours and investment. However, this framework dramatically fails at reproducing the spectrum of inflation. This unfortunate conclusion is robust to numerous alternative specifications.

A Spatiotemporal Autoregressive Price Index for the Paris Office Property Market

This article applies the spatiotemporal hedonic approach to the analysis of office transaction prices in the Paris property market (i.e., central Paris and its inner suburbs). The analysis focuses primarily on the markets two main business districts (the Central Business District and the La Defense District). We find that spatial and temporal dependence effects are strongly present in these submarkets. Additionally, we propose a hybrid method for incorporating a temporal regime switch into the spatiotemporal autoregressive model. The regime switching around 1997 (i.e., in the presence of temporal heterogeneity) substantially affects the significance of spatial and temporal dependences. Finally, we build a new price index that incorporates both spatiotemporal dependences and temporal heterogeneity. This index differs strongly from the usual hedonic price index.

A Spatial and Temporal Autoregressive Local Estimation for the Paris Housing Market

This original study examines the potential of a spatiotemporal autoregressive Local (LSTAR) approach in modelling transaction prices for the housing market in inner Paris. We use a data set from the Paris Region notary office (“Chambre des notaires d’Ile-de-France”) which consists of approximately 250,000 transactions units between the first quarter of 1990 and the end of 2005. We use the exact X -- Y coordinates and transaction date to spatially and temporally sort each transaction. We first choose to use the spatiotemporal autoregressive (STAR) approach proposed by Pace, Barry, Clapp and Rodriguez (1998). This method incorporates a spatiotemporal filtering process into the conventional hedonic function and attempts to correct for spatial and temporal correlative effects. We find significant estimates of spatial dependence effects. Moreover, using an original methodology, we find evidence of a strong presence of both spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the model. It suggests that spatial and temporal drifts in households socio-economic profiles and local housing market structure effects are certainly major determinants of the price level for the Paris Housing Market.

The Negative and Persistent Impact of Social Housing on Employment

We assess whether and how much social housing may contribute to the dynamics of unemployment. We propose an original model on the joint dynamics of individual home and labor market positions estimated with UK panel data that allows for idiosyncratic heterogeneity and state dependence. Our results provide significant evidence of cross-causality effects between home tenure and the labor market: we find a higher transition rate into social housing for unemployed or inactive household heads, and a lower probability of getting employed for social tenants ceteris paribus. We compare two groups of household heads living in the private sector: the employed and the jobseekers. We estimate their probability of being employed in the medium term. The indirect role of transitions to social housing appears quantitatively large and significant. Indeed, almost 20% of the gap in employment probability in the medium term between the two groups can be attributed to a higher likelihood of living in the social sector for the jobseekers.

The Impact Of Social Housing On The Labour Market Status Of The Disabled

Disability may impact on employment through entitlement to social housing. Estimates of an original dynamic panel data model of disability, labour market and housing tenure transitions in England indicate that up to one-quarter of the lower employment probability of the disabled can be attributed to the effect of qualifying for social housing. Short-lived disabilities can result in long spells in social housing that reduce incentives to participate in the labour market. This suggests that authorities should reform the welfare system and the allocation of social housing to limit the persistent and unfavourable consequences of allocating social housing to the disabled.

Macroeconomic Labor Shocks and the Housing Market in England

The labour and housing markets are deeply connected. For any household, a position taken on one of these markets affects the decisions taken regarding the other market. On the one hand, home tenure (homeowner, private or social renter) impacts the probability to find a job through differences in residential mobility; on the other hand, the labour market position (employed, unemployed, out-of-labour force) partly conditions access to mortgage or to the social housing sector. Analysing the possible evolutions of the two markets necessitates understanding the most significant mechanisms that are involved and providing a quantitative assessment of their magnitude. For English households, we use here an original setup to study from a descriptive point of view the joint dynamics of these two positions as well as the changes in wages and housing costs. In line with the existing literature, we find that the probability to be employed is lower for unemployed renters than for unemployed owner-occupiers. We also find evidence that social renters (and especially those with 100% rent rebates) experience the longest unemployment spells. Similarly, tenants in the social housing sector have lower transition rates to homeownership than private renters whatever their labour market position, even after correcting for differences in socio-demographic profiles between these two types of tenants. Finally, combining these empirical results, we illustrate the consequences of macroeconomic shocks. We first simulate a counterfactual sudden increase of one percentage point in the English unemployment rate in 2005 (i.e., around 250,000 more job seekers) keeping housing prices unchanged: this induces a substantial fall of about 30,000 owner-occupiers two years later. We also simulate the consequences of a counterfactual 10% drop in home prices and show that it conducts to a significant surge in unemployment and inactivity rates two years later.