- 著者
-
藤田 真哉
- 出版者
- 経済理論学会
- 雑誌
- 季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.47, no.1, pp.66-78, 2010-04-20 (Released:2017-04-25)
This paper explains why the U.S. economy experienced high growth from the 1990s to the early 2000s while the Japanese economy stagnated during this same period. To do so, we firstly construct a Kaldorian cumulative causation model which takes into account the interrelation between demand and labor productivity growth in a two-sector (investment goods and consumption goods sectors) framework. Secondly, we estimate the model parameters, using data for the U.S. during 1994-2004 and for Japan during 1991-2003 and substitute them into our model. Then, we compare both countries estimated demand regime functions, which describe the effect of productivity on demand, and productivity regime functions, showing the effect of demand on productivity in each sector. Our results are summarized as follows. The U.S. rapid GDP growth in the 1990s was characterized by the investment goods sector's high demand growth, which in turn was mainly driven by its high labor productivity growth. The U.S. established a new growth regime, which was caused not by wage indexation to productivity and mass consumption, as appeared during the so-called 'Fordism' period, but by decreasing the investment goods price and increasing investment demand in the consumption goods sector. Moreover, higher export and public expenditure growth for the consumer goods sector was the driving force behind this sector's high growth. As for the Japanese economy, although the investment goods sector also attained rapid productivity growth and could have raised its high demand growth during this period, it was unable to do so. The decreasing investment goods price didn't lead to its high demand growth as it did in the U.S. because the idle stock due to over-accumulation and bad loans caused by the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s gave disincentive for firms to invest. But, we should note that deregulating the labor market itself, which leads to an increase in the low-skilled irregular worker, could not produce higher performance without active labor market policies because it brings about low productivity in both the investment goods and the consumer goods sectors.