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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2007‒03‒17
ten papers chosen by |
| By: | Carlos Pestana Barros; Nicolas Peypoch |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze efficiency and productivity of Italian and Portuguese airports, by using the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity indicator. The key advantage of this approach is that both input contraction and output expansion are considered. The model generates efficiency scores, ranking the airports in the sample. We conclude that inputs and outputs play a major role in airports efficiency. According to this methodology, it can be stated that some Italian and Portuguese airports are efficient and that productivity increased in most of the cases. |
| Keywords: | Italian and Portuguese airports; Luenberger productivity indicator. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp62007&r=eff |
| By: | Sarah Brown; Robert McNabb; Karl Taylor (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | Using matched employer-employee level data drawn from the UK Workplace and Employee Relations Survey, we explore the influence of worker commitment and loyalty on firm level labour productivity and financial performance. Our empirical findings suggest that worker commitment and loyalty enhance both labour productivity and financial performance at the firm level thereby highlighting a hitherto neglected conduit for improved firm performance. Using employee level data, we also explore the determinants of worker commitment and loyalty in order to ascertain how such attachments to the firm may be engendered. In general, our employee level analysis suggests that it is firm level characteristics (such as appraisal schemes, supervision, suspensions and redundancies) that influence attachments to the firm. Such findings suggest that firms may be able to exert some influence over the loyalty and commitment of its workforce, which, in turn, may affect firm performance. |
| Keywords: | Commitment, Financial Performance, Labour Productivity, Loyalty. |
| JEL: | J20 J50 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2006005&r=eff |
| By: | Joachim Wagner |
| Abstract: | Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality longitudinal data at the plant level, this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between exports and productivity for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for manufactured goods. It applies and extends the now standard approach from the international literature to document that the positive productivity differential of exporters compared to non-exporters is statistically significant, and substantial, even when observed firm characteristics and unobserved firm specific effects are controlled for. For West German plants (but not for East German plants) some empirical evidence for self-selection of more productive firms into export markets is found. There is no evidence for the hypothesis that plants which start to export perform better in the three years after the start than their counterparts which do not start to sell their products on the world market. Results for West Germany support the hypothesis that the productivity differential between exporters and non-exporters is at least in part the result of a market driven selection process in which those export starters that have low productivity at starting time fail as a successful exporter in the years after the start, and only those that were more productive at starting time continue to export |
| Keywords: | Exports, productivity, micro data, Germany |
| JEL: | F14 D21 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2007-15&r=eff |
| By: | Benoit Dostie (IEA, HEC Montréal) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we estimate age based wage and productivity differentials using linked employer-employee Canadian data from the Workplace and Employee Survey 1999-2003. Data on the firm side is used to estimate production functions taking into account the age profile of the firm’s workforce. Data on the workers’ side is used to estimate wage equations that also depend on age. Results show concave age-wage and age-productivity profiles. Wage-productivity comparisons show that the productivity of workers aged 55 and more with at least an undergraduate degree is lower than their wages. For other groups, we find that wages do not deviate significantly from productivity estimates. |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iea:carech:0615&r=eff |
| By: | Barry Bosworth; Susan M. Collins |
| Abstract: | We compare the recent economic performances of China and India using a simple growth accounting framework that produces estimates of the contribution of labor, capital, education, and total factor productivity for the three sectors of agriculture, industry, and services as well as for the aggregate economy. Our analysis incorporates recent data revisions in both countries and includes extensive discussion of the underlying data series. The growth accounts show a roughly equal division in each country between the contributions of capital accumulation and TFP to growth in output per worker over the period 1978-2004, and an acceleration of growth when the period is divided at 1993. However, the magnitude of output growth in China is roughly double that of India at the aggregate level, and also higher in each of the three sectors in both sub-periods. In China the post-1993 acceleration was concentrated mostly in industry, which contributed nearly 60 percent of China’s aggregate productivity growth. In contrast, 45 percent of the growth in India in the second sub-period came in services. Reallocation of workers from agriculture to industry and services has contributed 1.2 percentage points to productivity growth in each country. |
| JEL: | F43 O1 O4 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12943&r=eff |
| By: | Verheul, I.; Carree, M.A.; Thurik, A.R. (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates time allocation decisions in new ventures of female and male entrepreneurs using a new model that distinguishes between preference and (expected) productivity effects on the number of working hours. Using data of 1203 entrepreneurs we find that the preference for work time in new ventures is related to the motivation for starting up a business, the propensity to take risk, the availability of other income sources, firm size and sector. Productivity of work time is explained by human, financial and social capital, outsourcing and firm characteristics. This study also evaluates actual profit effects one year after start-up. With respect to gender we find that ? on average ? women invest less time in the business than men largely due to a lower productivity per working hour, explained by lower endowments of human, social and financial capital. |
| Keywords: | Time allocation;New ventures;Gender; |
| Date: | 2007–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:30009879&r=eff |
| By: | Joachim Wagner |
| Abstract: | Using unique recently released nationally representative high-quality data at the plant level, this paper presents the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between productivity and size of the export market for Germany, a leading actor on the world market for manufactured goods. It documents that firms that export to countries inside the euro-zone are more productive than firms that sell their products in Germany only, but less productive than firms that export to countries outside the euro-zone, too. This is in line with the hypothesis that export markets outside the euro-zone have higher entry costs that can only by paid by more productive firms. |
| Keywords: | Exports, productivity, micro data, Germany |
| JEL: | D21 F14 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2007-13&r=eff |
| By: | Hajime Tomura |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes endogenous fluctuations in total factor productivity (TFP) in a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, and illustrates the interaction of credit market frictions, asset prices, the entry and exit of firms, and fluctuations in TFP in response to firm-level productivity and aggregate credit-market shocks. I also analyze the effect of bankruptcy and foreclosure laws on fluctuations in TFP through their effect on credit market frictions. Implications of the model are consistent with the features of the stagnation in Japan in the 1990s. |
| Keywords: | Financial stability; Productivity |
| JEL: | D24 E44 G33 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:07-17&r=eff |
| By: | Pamela Lenton (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the cost of the provision of higher education courses within further education colleges in England. The further education sector is complex because of the wide range of courses it provides both in terms of subject type and of qualification level. We believe this to be the first attempt to fit a cost function specifically to the further education sector. Cost functions for a sample of 96 colleges over a two-year period, from 2000 to 2002, are fitted using a panel data methodology as well as stochastic frontier analysis. Our findings indicate that most further education colleges are able to benefit from economies of scale. Results from both methodologies suggest the presence of product-specific economies of scale, substantial ray economies of scale and that higher education classroom-based courses, such as business studies, along with vocational courses display substantial economies of scope. |
| Keywords: | Stochastic frontier, Education |
| JEL: | C21 C23 I21 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2006010&r=eff |
| By: | Edwin van der Werf |
| Abstract: | Quantitative models for climate policy modeling differ in the production structure used and in the sizes of the elasticities of substitution. The empirical foundation for both is generally lacking. This paper estimates the parameters of two-level CES production functions with capital, labour and energy as inputs, and is the first to systematically compare all nesting structures. Using industry-level data from 12 OECD countries, we find that the nesting structure where capital and labour are combined first, fits the data best, but for most countries and industries we cannot reject that all three inputs can be put into one single nest. These two nesting structures are used by most climate models. However, while several climate policy models use a Cobb-Douglas function for (part of the) production function, we reject elasticities equal to one, in favour of considerably smaller values. Finally we find evidence for factor-specific technological change. With lower elasticities and with factor-specific technological change, some climate policy models may find a bigger effect of endogenous technological change on mitigating the costs of climate policy. |
| Keywords: | Climate policy, input substitution, technological change |
| JEL: | O13 Q32 Q43 Q55 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1316&r=eff |