Report at Asian KLEMS 2019 Conference
Ilya Voskoboynikov and Ksenia Bobyleva presented their reports at the Asian KLEMS 2019 conference, which was held at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Ilya Voskoboynikov made a presentation entitled “Productivity performance of high- and low-skill intensive industries before and after the crisis in Europe, Japan, Russia and the US”. The paper shows that in all four economies TFP slowdown was particularly biased towards the low-skill intensive industries. The thus increasing role of high-skill intensive sectors in the post-crisis TFP growth performance is a new phenomenon, which deserves more attention. At the same time, the aggregate TFP slowdown continues after the crisis (Japan is an exception). The positive impact of high- skill intensive sector is not strong enough to circumvent an overall productivity slowdown of the low-skill intensive industries. The structural change effect towards a higher share of the skill-intensive industries is negligible and thus not contributing to the overall post crisis performance.
Ksenia Bobyleva reported on “The contribution of intangible assets to the long-term growth of the Russian economy”. She presented estimates of this contribution and considered why it may be underestimated. The report focused on intangible assets from a comparative perspective. These assets are accounted for in two ways – using the 2008 SNA and using the extended interpretation proposed by Corrado, Hulten, Sichel (2005). Their approach accounts for intangible assets, including those outside the 2008 SNA asset classification, for example, brand equity and specific firm resources, including human capital. Russian official statistics were tested by surveying additional intangible assets and going beyond SNA. The expanded number of assets slightly increased the contribution of the intangible component to the growth of value added but had practically no effect on productivity.