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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2005‒09‒29
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Patrick Paul Walsh; Peter McGoldrick (Department of Economics, Trinity College) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the productivity dynamics of 680 industrial Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) between 1980 and 1994. During this time managerial autonomy over factor markets was introduced. The timing of autonomy varied across SOEs and take-up was an endogenous process: high-productivity SOEs where more likely to take managerial control. We allow for this by adapting an algorithm developed in Olley & Pakes (1996) in order to generate estimates of productivity dynamics that deal with both simultaneity and endogenous selection biases. Apart from offering a methodology to estimate productivity dynamics during endogenous institutional change, we demonstrate that SOEs in China obtained productivity gains from managerial autonomy over factor markets in the years before privatisation. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcd:tcduee:2000514&r=eff |
| By: | Roberta Colavecchio; Declan Curran; Michael Funke |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to address the question of convergence across German districts in the first decade after German unification by drawing out and emphasising some stylised facts of regional per capita income dynamics. We achieve this by employing non-parametric techniques which focus on the evolution of the entire cross-sectional income distribution. In particular, we follow a distributional approach to convergence based on kernel density estimation and implement a number of tests to establish the statistical significance of our findings. This paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal/bimodal distribution. |
| Keywords: | regional economic growth, Germany, convergence clubs, density estimation, modality tests |
| JEL: | C14 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1533&r=eff |
| By: | Dierk Herzer (Universität Göttingen) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the long-run impact of capital goods imports, intermediate goods imports, and exports of manufactured and primary goods on total factor productivity in Chile. Using cointegration techniques, we find productivity-enhancing effects of capital and intermediate goods imports as well as manufactured exports, and productivity-limiting effects of primary exports. |
| Keywords: | Trade Composition, Productivity, Cointegration |
| JEL: | O47 F41 C22 |
| Date: | 2005–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:116&r=eff |
| By: | Beverly Hirtle |
| Abstract: | Despite recent innovations that might have reduced banks' reliance on brick-and-mortar branches for distributing retail financial services, the number of U.S. bank branches has continued to increase steadily over time. Further, an increasing percentage of these branches are held by banks with large branch networks. This paper assesses the implications of these developments by examining a series of simple branch performance measures and asking how these measures vary, on average, across institutions with different branch network sizes. ; The key findings are that banks with 100 to 500 branches ("mid-sized networks") had lower bank-average deposits per branch and roughly equal volumes of small business loans per branch, but no reduction in net deposit costs, relative to banks with larger branch networks. When compared to banks with 100 or fewer branches, mid-sized branch networks had lower bank-average deposits and small business loan volume per branch, but had lower net deposit costs. The analysis shows no systematic relationship between branch network size and overall institutional profitability. The results imply that mid-sized branch networks may be at a competitive disadvantage, especially relative to the very largest branch networks. |
| Keywords: | Branch banks ; Bank profits |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:211&r=eff |
| By: | Dierk Herzer (Universität Göttingen) |
| Abstract: | In this study, we examine the long-run impact of capital goods imports, exports of manufactured and primary goods on total factor productivity in Chile. Using the integration and cointegration techniques of Kapetanios (2005), Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001), Stock (1987), and Saikkonen (1991) we find a long-run relationship between these variables. All in all, our estimation results provide evidence for the existence of productivity-enhancing effects of capital goods imports and manufactured exports and of productivity-limiting effects of primary exports. |
| Keywords: | Trade, trade composition, productivity, cointegration |
| JEL: | O47 F41 C22 |
| Date: | 2005–07–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:115&r=eff |
| By: | Baoline Chen; Peter Zadrozny |
| Abstract: | Production capital and technology, fundamental to understanding output and productivity growth, are unobserved except at disaggregated levels and must be estimated prior to being used in empirical analysis. We develop and apply a new estimation method, based on advances in economics, statistics, and applied mathematics, which involves estimating a structural dynamic economic model of a representative production firm and using the estimated model to compute Kalman-filtered estimates of capital and technology for the sample period. We apply the method to annual data from 1947-97 for U.S. total manufacturing and compare the estimates with those reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. |
| Keywords: | Kalman filter estimation of unobserved state variables |
| JEL: | C50 C81 D24 L60 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1526&r=eff |