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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2007‒11‒10
ten papers chosen by |
| By: | Pierre-Guillaume Méon (DULBEA, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels); Friedrich Schneider (Department of Economics, Austria.); Laurent Weill (Université Robert Schuman, Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Strasbourg) |
| Abstract: | We analyze how adding the shadow economy to official output figures affects estimated technical efficiency at the country level. We find that this only slightly affects the ranking of efficiency scores, but increases average efficiency in a sample of 87 to 97 countries, both developed and developing. Our results are robust to the functional form of the production technology and the adjustment of labour to account for years of schooling. |
| Keywords: | shadow economy, income, aggregate productivity, efficiency. |
| JEL: | O11 O17 O47 O5 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:07-18rs&r=eff |
| By: | Gary Koop (University of Strathclyde, UK and The Rimini Centre for Economics Analysis, Italy.); Lise Tole (University of Strathclyde, UK) |
| Keywords: | Bayesian stochastic frontier analysis; efficiency; environmental regulations and plant performance; pollution havens; regulatory chill; gold mining. |
| JEL: | Q3 Q56 C11 C23 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:26-07&r=eff |
| By: | Jinyoung Kim (Department of Economics, Korea University); Sangjoon John Lee (Alfred University); Gerald Marschke (University at Albany and IZA) |
| Abstract: | It has long been recognized that worker wages and possibly productivity are higher in large firms. Moreover, at least since Schumpeter (1942) economists have been interested in the relative efficiency of large firms in the research and development enterprise. This paper uses longitudinal worker-firm-matched data to examine the relationship between the productivity of workers specifically engaged in innovation and firm size in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. In both industries, we find that inventors?productivity increases with firm size. This result holds across different specifications and even after controlling for inventors?experience, education, the quality of other inventors in the firm, and other firm characteristics. We find evidence in the pharmaceutical industry that this is partly accounted for by differences between how large and small firms organize R&D activities. |
| Keywords: | Patents, Innovation, Labor productivity, Research, Firm size |
| JEL: | O30 O32 O34 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iek:wpaper:0708&r=eff |
| By: | Sandra Saïd; Sophie Thoyer |
| Abstract: | Auctions are increasingly used in agri-environmental contracting. However, the issue of synergy effect between agri-environmental measures has been consistently overlooked, both by decision-makers and by the theoretical literature on conservation auction. Based on laboratory experiments, the objective of this paper is to compare the performance of different procurement auction designs (simultaneous, sequential and combinatorial) in the case of multiple heterogeneous units where bidders may potentially want to sell more than one unit and where their supply cost structure displays positive synergies. The comparison is made by using two performance criteria: budget efficiency and allocative efficiency. We also test if performance results are affected by information feedback to bidders after each auction period. Finally we explain performance results by the analysis of bidding behaviour in the three mechanisms. |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lam:wpaper:07-07&r=eff |
| By: | Uwe Cantner (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with innovative activities of firms, the resulting market success as well as the interdependencies between both. In a first theoretical part, different cases of those interdependencies are investigated by the way of a simple model based on replicator dynamics. It is shown that the resulting differential success (in those activities) of firms in a market leads to specific characteristic pattern of industry dynamics. The second empirical part of the paper is used to get an account of the working of replicator dynamics mechanism within German manufacturing. Doing so changes in firms' market shares and the relation to their respective relative technological performance and to their or innovative performance are investigated with productivity levels as a proxy for technological performance and productivity changes as proxy for innovative performance. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, market competition, replicator dynamics, productivity decomposition |
| JEL: | O3 L1 D24 |
| Date: | 2007–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-078&r=eff |
| By: | Kyoji Fukao; Tsutomu Miyagawa; Miho Takizawa |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:hstdps:d07-224&r=eff |
| By: | Yongbok Jeon; Matías Vernengo |
| Abstract: | Changes in labor productivity have been a source of puzzlement and paradoxical results for economists. We suggest that puzzles and paradoxes vanish once two simple regularities are properly acknowledged. Okun and Verdoorn’s Laws explain 87 percent of all the variations in labor productivity. Also, our estimation method and our results suggest that conventional measures of Okun’s Law have overestimated the value of the Okun coefficient, and accepted a greater degree of variability than is actually guaranteed by the empirical evidence. Okun’s Law has been relatively stable through time, and there is no significant decrease in the value of the parameter since the 1960s. |
| Keywords: | Productivity, Cycle, Structural Change |
| JEL: | E32 O49 O51 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2007_05&r=eff |
| By: | Lopez-Pablos, Rodrigo A. |
| Abstract: | Exploring current literature which assess relations between cognitive ability and height, obesity, and its productivity-employability effect on women's labor market; we appraised the Argentine case to find these social-physical relations that involve anthropometric and traditional economic variables. Adapting an anthropometric Mincer approach by using probabilistic and censured econometric models which were developed for it. Have been found evidence that could be understood as existence of discriminative behavior on obese women to market entrance; besides, a good performance of women height as an unobserved approximation of cognitive ability measure to explain feminine productivity. |
| Keywords: | Height; Obesity; Anthropometric Mincer; Discrimination. |
| JEL: | I12 J24 C34 |
| Date: | 2007–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:5532&r=eff |
| By: | Uwe Cantner (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Microeconomics); Kristin Joel (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Microeconomics) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of Knowledge Management (KM) for the innovation success of firms. It is assumed that the functional chains of KM lead directly and indirectly to more innovative success via enhancing the recombination of internal and external knowledge assets. To analyse the embedding of KM in a firm's internal system of innovation we establish a structural equation model. We capture KM as latent concept and trace different functional chains by which KM impacts. Using data on KM and innovation success of 351 German firms of the manufacturing sector and knowledge-intensive services located in Thuringia and Hesse, our findings confirm the (dynamic) capability function of KM, which leads via improving exploitation of internal and external innovation assets to more innovation success. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge management, innovation, absorptive capacity, resource-based view, structural equation modelling |
| JEL: | O32 D21 C3 |
| Date: | 2007–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-080&r=eff |
| By: | Sonja Fagernäs |
| Abstract: | This study assesses the effects of industrial disputes legislation and the dispute settlement process on informal versus formal employment in India. It uses indicators of pro-worker court awards and court efficiency as well as amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act (IDA) at the level of Indian states. The state-level IDA amendments are classified as pro-worker or pro-employer and enforcement enhancing. Three complementary empirical approaches and data sources are used. These include a quasi-panel dataset constructed from four household employment surveys (NSSO) between 1983-1999, a state-industry level panel dataset for organised (formal) sector industrial units (ASI) for 1980-1997 and a cross-sectional survey of unorganised (informal) manufacturing firms for 2000/2001. |
| Keywords: | Informal employment, labour law, industrial disputes, judicial efficiency, employment structure |
| JEL: | J21 K31 O17 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp353&r=eff |