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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2006‒07‒28
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Gupta, Bishnupriya (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses firm level data from all the textile producing regions in India to examine the relation between wages, unionization and labour productivity. We find that fewer workers were employed per machine in the unionized mills in Bombay and Ahmedabad, as compared to non-unionized regions implying that low labour productivity was not due to union resistance to increased work intensity. Our findings suggest that while low wages in India encouraged overmanning, higher wages, prompted by unionization, had productivity enhancing effects. We explore alternative explanations for low labour productivity, arising from the managerial and institutional structure of Indian cotton mills. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:753&r=eff |
| By: | Butter, Frank A.G. den (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, Business Administration and Economitrics); Wit, Paul |
| Abstract: | Commonly increases in total factor productivity (TFP) are associated with technological innovations measured by R&D expenditures. Empirical evidence seems to corroborate this relationship. However, in trading countries like the Netherlands, productivity increases, even in industry, can also be the result of innovations in the way transactions are managed. These innovations reduce transaction costs and exploit the welfare gains from (further) international division of labour. Such innovations are only partly included in R&D data. Consequently there is not much attention for these "trade innovations" - as we label them - in policy. In an empirical analysis this paper compares the influence of trade innovations with the influence of R&D expenditures on TFP in various industrialized countries. It appears that, at least in the Netherlands, trade innovations are as important for TFP as technological innovations which directly affect the efficiency of production, and which we label "product innovations". |
| Keywords: | R&D; Innovation; Transaction costs; Total factor productivity |
| JEL: | F10 F43 O47 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2006-13&r=eff |
| By: | Gine, Xavier; Love, Inessa |
| Abstract: | The authors study the effect of reorganization costs on the efficiency of bankruptcy laws. They develop a simple model that predicts that in a regime with high costs, the law fails to achieve the efficient outcome of liquidating unviable businesses and reorganizing viable ones. The authors test the model using the Colombian bankruptcy reform of 1999. Using data from 1,924 firms filing for bankruptcy between 1996 and 2003, they find that the pre-reform reorganization proceeding was so inefficient that it failed to separate economically viable firms from inefficient ones. In contrast, by substantially lowering reorganization costs, the reform improved the selection of viable firms into reorganization. In this sense, the new law increased the efficiency of the bankruptcy system in Colombia. |
| Keywords: | Banks & Banking Reform,Corporate Law,Small Scale Enterprise,Microfinance,Economic Theory & Research |
| Date: | 2006–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3970&r=eff |