whosetitanelbow

Does deflation and a drop in the value of the dollar make productivity
"look better" than it would, everything else equal, if there were
inflationary conditions or a strong dollar? I shouldn't try to figure these
things out anymore but it occurs to me that there's a lot of flim-flammery
in the economic "data" these days.

--
"So the gamers and the scammers say it's the fault of the critics who tried
to carve through the mumbo-jumbo in the first place." -- Josh Marshall

conmidhe

If productivity is measured in terms of "value added" per dollar of cost,
it shouldnt matter what the actual value of the dollar is. The key metric
would be the amount of the "value added". Unless you count the "value
added" in dollars in which case this entire theory may be cursed. Except
that maybe the percentage of difference in the value of "value added"
would theoretically be identical to the percentage of difference in the
value of the dollar in which case the ratio between the two would remain
constant.

HTH

-Con (hasnt added value to anything in years)

joe manfre

Eh, all these government agencies are paid to take forty-'leven
things into account and then describe them all in numbing detail in
public releases. Here's BLS's short FAQ on productivity calculation:

http://www.bls.gov/lpc/lprfaq.htm

And here's the really long, multi-part, pointy-brained version with
a bunch of math in it:

http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch10_itc.htm

(Nonfarm productivity is the important one that everyone cares about.
Also, BLS seasonally adjusts everything to smooth out the effects of
summertime or Hmas-season temp hiring, annual auto-factory furloughs
and so on.)

Productivity calculation takes BEA's GDP calculations into account, so
you might find this paper fascinating:

http://www.bea.gov/bea/ARTICLES/2002/10October/1002UpdatedMeth.pdf

You can probably find some other stuff by googling with site:bea.gov
if you want.


JM

the avocado avenger

OK. This reminds me of something I keep meaning to ask:
If the term "value-added" appears in the HUMAN RESOURCES mission
statement at work, should I be worried?

Stacia
all like serious and shit

conmidhe

In my experience that means you are about to be replaced by mexicans,
robots, or some combination thereof.[1]

**** the system, drop out, dont work, no income means no income taxes!

-Con

[1] No not robots made in mexico. mexicans, OR robots, OR some of each,
NOT some that are both.

mark hill

Not really. A spike in unemployment typically makes productivity look
good, at least in the short term. And all planning in at least the
American economy is only done in the short term anyway.

beable van polasm

Mark Hill <mhill@epicentre.net> writes:


That's because long term planning is for COMMIES! Think about it, any
time you hear about a "five year plan" or a "ten year plan", you
straight away think of Fidel Castro or Nikita Kruschev waxing
eulogistically about their strategy to produce an extra fifty tonnes
per hectare of potatoes, or to exceed the quota at the tractor
factories by at least two thousand traktors per year.


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