Decomposing Learning by Doing in New Plants

Abstract

The paper examines learning by doing in the context of a production function in which the other arguments are labor, human capital, physical capital, and vintage as a proxy for embodied technical change in physical capital. Learning is further decomposed into organization learning, capital learning, and manual task learning. The model is tested with time-series and cross-section data for various samples of up to 2,150 plants over a 14-year period.