Quality-adjusted labour input: New quarterly estimates for 1993 to 2009 and annual estimates from 1970

Abstract

Quality-adjusted labour input QALI is a measure of labour input to economic production which takes account of the composition of the workforce as well as volume of hours worked. It provides a more complete picture of the input of labour to the production process than traditional measures, which focus only on the quantity of labour input, and therefore provides a broader perspective in assessing productivity performance. Along with the volume index of capital services, QALI is a key input to multifactor productivity and growth accounting analyses. This article presents new estimates of QALI for 1993 to 2009. The series has been extended by an additional year since the previous release Turvey, Goodridge and Franklin 2010. An additional section backcasts QALI to 1970 using annual labour services estimates from the EU KLEMS dataset 1.