Alternative capital asset depreciation rates for U.S. capital and total factor productivity measures

Abstract

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) use estimates of depreciation rates for structures and equipment to construct estimates of capital stock from data on capital investments. The depreciation rates are based on research by Frank C. Wykoff and Charles R. Hulten from the 1980s. More recent studies by Statistics Canada, from 2007 and 2015, use Canadian data on used asset transactions from Canada’s Annual Capital and Repair Expenditures Survey of establishments. They found faster depreciation rates, especially for structures. Sheharyar Bokhari and David Geltner’s 2019 study of U.S. used asset prices also found faster depreciation rates for structures. To illustrate the potential effects of implementing these estimates from newer studies, we created a concordance to match Canadian to U.S. asset categories. We reestimated BEA capital stock measures and the BLS capital and total factor productivity (TFP) measures using depreciation rates based on the Canadian Annual Capital and Repair Expenditures Survey. Using these faster depreciation rates results in substantially lower estimates of net capital stocks and higher estimates of depreciation in BEA accounts but has minimal effects on growth rates of TFP in the BLS accounts.