By Alok Johri and Muhebullah Karimzada
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2016-11&r=dge
We incorporate shocks to the efficiency with which firms learn from production activity and accumulate knowledge into an otherwise standard real DSGE model with imperfect competition. Using real aggregate data and Bayesian inference techniques, we find that learning efficiency shocks are an important source of observed variation in the growth rate of aggregate output, investment, consumption and especially hours worked in post-war US data. The estimated shock processes suggest much less exogenous variation in preferences and total factor productivity are needed by our model to account for the joint dynamics of consumption and hours. This occurs because learning efficiency shocks induce shifts in labour demand uncorrelated with current TFP, a role usually played by preference shocks. At the same time, knowledge capital acts like an endogenous source of productivity variation in the model. Measures of model fit prefer the specification with learning efficiency shocks.
Conceptually, I much prefer learning efficiency shocks to preference shocks, which have become a catch-all for anything that cannot be measured and which are as close to a black box as can be. Learning efficiency shocks have a much better defined theoretical story that can be tested.
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