In a 1957 paper, Robert Solow exploited the mathematical properties of the aggregate production function to isolate the role of disembodied “technical change” in economic growth. Solow’s method allowed us to disentangle the role of technical change from that of production factors, with the residual serving as a measure of total factor productivity growth. Solow concluded that more than 87 percent of the growth rate could be attributed to technical change. His method and results were met equally with praise and criticism, some of which focused on the use of an aggregate production function, the residual composition, and measurement errors. The interrogations around the residual— considered by Moses Abramovitz (1956, 11) as “some sort of measure of our ignorance”— gave rise to an abundant literature from the late 1950s which made it possible to improve the technique of calculation and refine the results. Long studied in the 1960s and 1970s as “the most important source of economic growth” (Griliches 1963, 331), the Solow residual was recycled in the mid-1980s within the debates on the short-term sources of impulses of economic fluctuations. Two distinct but eventually irreconcilable research programs carried out by Edward Prescott and Robert Hall opposed each other. Prescott, with Finn Kydland, held the Solow residual as a good measure of total factor productivity and believed that using the Solow residual to calibrate their model would provide clear evidence that technological shocks were driving the business cycle in an economy governed by perfect competition and constant returns to scale. Hall initially used the residual in an altogether different context to identify econometrically markup, that is, firms’ ability to set prices above the marginal costs. This, he concluded, showed both that there was no such thing as perfect competition in the overall U.S. economy, and that the Solow residual captured measures of market power and increasing

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索洛残留物的盐度如何？讨论 1980 年代和 1990 年代的真实商业周期

在 1957 年的一篇论文中，罗伯特·索洛 (Robert Solow) 利用总生产函数的数学特性来隔离非实体化的“技术变革”在经济增长中的作用。索洛的方法使我们能够将技术变革的作用与生产要素的作用区分开来，剩余部分作为全要素生产率增长的衡量标准。Solow 得出的结论是，超过 87% 的增长率可归因于技术变革。他的方法和结果同样受到赞扬和批评，其中一些侧重于聚合生产函数的使用、剩余成分和测量误差。围绕残差的审讯——摩西·阿布拉莫维茨 (Moses Abramovitz) (1956, 11) 作为“对我们无知的某种衡量”——从 1950 年代后期产生了大量文献，这使得改进计算技术和改进结果成为可能。在 1960 年代和 1970 年代长期被研究为“经济增长的最重要来源”（Grilices 1963, 331），索洛残差在 1980 年代中期在关于经济波动的短期动力来源的辩论中被回收利用。爱德华·普雷斯科特和罗伯特·霍尔开展的两个截然不同但最终不可调和的研究项目相互对立。普雷斯科特和芬恩·基德兰，认为索洛残差是全要素生产率的一个很好的衡量标准，并相信使用索洛残差校准他们的模型将提供明确的证据，表明技术冲击正在推动由完全竞争和规模报酬不变的经济体中的商业周期。霍尔最初在一个完全不同的背景下使用残差来识别计量加价，即企业将价格设定在边际成本之上的能力。他总结道，这既表明美国整体经济中不存在完全竞争这样的东西，而且索洛残差捕获了市场力量和增长的衡量标准。企业定价高于边际成本的能力。他总结道，这既表明美国整体经济中不存在完全竞争这样的东西，而且索洛残差捕获了市场力量和增长的衡量标准。企业将价格设定在边际成本之上的能力。他总结道，这既表明美国整体经济中不存在完全竞争这样的东西，而且索洛残差捕获了市场力量和增长的衡量标准。