摘要：When doing growth accounting, should we use ex post or ex ante measures of user
costs to calculate the contribution of capital? The answer, based on a simple
model of temporary equilibrium, is that ex post is better in theory. In practice
researchers usually calculate ex post user costs by assuming that the rate of
return is equalised across assets. But this is only true if expectations are
correct. A numerical example shows that either ex ante or ex post can be closer
to the true measure, depending on the parameters. I propose a hybrid method that
makes use of elements of both approaches. I test this and the other methods
using data for 31 UK industries.
关键词：User cost, capital, ex post, ex ante, growth accounting
