Kasvulaskenta

Kasvulaskenta, or growth accounting, is a framework in macroeconomics for decomposing the growth of an economy’s output into contributions from input factors and productivity. It is used to understand how much of economic growth is due to capital accumulation, labor force changes, and improvements in efficiency or technology.

The standard approach relies on a production function that relates output to capital and labor, commonly the Cobb-Douglas form Y = A K^α L^(1-α). With growth rates, the basic identity becomes g_Y ≈ α g_K + (1-α) g_L + g_A, where g_Y, g_K, and g_L are the growth rates of output, capital, and labor, respectively, α is the capital share, and g_A is the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP), the residual. More general specifications can use alternative production technologies or time-varying shares.

Data required include time series for GDP, capital stock, and labor input (such as hours worked or employment). Estimation typically computes the contributions of capital deepening and labor growth and then infers TFP as the remaining growth. Kasvulaskenta is widely used to analyze long-run growth, compare different economies, and evaluate how policy, innovation, and institutions affect productivity.

Limitations include dependence on the chosen production technology and parameterization, measurement errors in capital and labor, and the fact that the TFP residual aggregates diverse effects (technology, institutions, and mismeasurement). Despite these caveats, kasvulaskenta remains a central tool for understanding sources of growth and the role of productivity in economic performance.