Data and Code for: Useful Work and the Productivity Paradox (OECD, 1980–2020)

This dataset contains the merged panel data used in the empirical analysis of "Useful Work and the Productivity Paradox: Heterogeneous Output Elasticities, Structural Change, and Biophysical Regimes in OECD Economies, 1980–2020." The dataset covers 16 OECD economies over 1980–2020 (591 country-year observations before sample restrictions; 519 in the estimation sample) and combines variables from two publicly available sources: Penn World Table version 11.0 (real GDP, capital stock, employment) and the Country-Level Primary-Final-Useful (CL-PFU) energy and exergy database v1.2 (aggregate useful exergy, final-to-useful conversion efficiency). An ICT investment ratio constructed from OECD STAN national accounts data is also included. Countries: AUS, AUT, BEL, CAN, CHE, DNK, ESP, FIN, FRA, GBR, ITA, JPN, NLD, NZL, SWE, USA. Germany and Ireland are excluded due to structural breaks unrelated to the research question (German reunification; Irish IP-transfer GDP distortions). The dataset is provided as a single CSV file (oecd_thermodynamic_panel_ready.csv) with nine variables: Country (ISO-3), Year, Y (real GDP, millions of 2017 USD), K (capital stock, millions of 2017 USD), L (employment, millions of persons), U_M (useful exergy, TJ), eta (final-to-useful conversion efficiency), ICT (ICT GFCF share), and A (auxiliary variable). A Jupyter Notebook (REPLICATION_UsefulWork_OECD.ipynb) reproducing all tables and figures in the paper is included.