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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2008‒08‒21
ten papers chosen by |
| By: | Matthews, Kent (Cardiff Business School); Guo, Jianguang; Zhang, Nina |
| Abstract: | This study examines the productivity growth of the nationwide banks of China over the ten years to 2006. Using a bootstrap method for the Malmquist index estimates of productivity growth are constructed with appropriate confidence intervals. The paper adjusts for the quality of the output by accounting for the non-performing loans on the balance sheets and test for the robustness of the results by examining alternative sets of outputs. The productivity growth of the state-owned banks is compared with the Joint-stock banks and it determinants evaluated. The paper finds that average productivity of the Chinese banks improved modestly over this period. Adjusting for the quality of loans, by treating NPLs as an undesirable output, the average productivity growth of the state-owned banks was zero or negative while productivity of the Joint-Stock banks was markedly higher. |
| Keywords: | Bank Efficiency; Productivity; Malmquist index; Bootstrapping |
| JEL: | D24 G21 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2008/17&r=eff |
| By: | ITO Banri; WAKASUGI Ryuhei; TOMIURA Eiichi |
| Abstract: | It is noteworthy that multinational firms are beginning to offshore a wide range of operations. Theoretical studies have showed that offshoring contributes to a higher productivity. This paper aims to provide evidence of the effect of offshoring on productivity, on the basis of original 2006 survey data of offshore sourcing of Japanese firms. Our estimation shows that the offshoring of tasks for production of intermediates goods and final assembly, as well as the offshoring of tasks for R&D and information services, positively affects productivity growth, while the outsourcing of other service tasks has no significant impact on productivity. It also shows that firms outsourcing to the United States or Europe have realized high production efficiency, followed by firms outsourcing to Asia, in comparison with non-offshoring firms. |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:08028&r=eff |
| By: | Satish Chand and Charles Yala |
| Abstract: | Does land tenure form affect farm level productivity? The answer, from farm level data for oil palm from the Hoskins project in West New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, is in the affirmative. Analysis of farm level output, controlling for all measured inputs, shows systematic differences in productivity across three land tenure types; namely, farms under customary purchase agreements (CP), those under the land settlement scheme (LSS), and those under village owned land schemes (VOP). The evidence is that productivity is higher under the CP and LSS schemes compared to the VOP arrangement. The empirics suggests that the higher productivity is due to benefits from economies of scale enjoyed by farms with improved tenure security and from the absence of sharing of income and harvesting effort that is present on farms with insecure tenure. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idc:wpaper:idec08-02&r=eff |
| By: | Altan Aldan; Mahmut Gunay |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:0805&r=eff |
| By: | Pham Van Ha and Tom Kompas |
| Abstract: | Standard tests of the Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson (HBS) hypothesis treat productivity levels in and across countries as fixed and observable, and offer little empirical support for the hypothesis. If productivity follows a jump-diffusion process, these standard tests will generate biased estimates, measuring productivity levels with error. This paper instead proposes an ‘errors in variables’ approach to correct this bias, and finds support for the HBS hypothesis assuming a jump-diffusion process in productivity. Empirical results are obtained for a data set available for the United States, Japan, West Germany and France over the period 1960 to 1996. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idc:wpaper:idec08-03&r=eff |
| By: | Simon Deakin; Prabirjit Sarkar |
| Abstract: | Standard economic theory sees labour law as an exogenous interference with market relations and predicts mostly negative impacts on employment and productivity. We argue for a more nuanced theoretical position: labour law is, at least in part, endogenous, with both the production and the application of labour law norms influenced by national and sectoral contexts, and by complementarities between the institutions of the labour market and those of corporate governance and financial markets. Legal origin may also operate as a force shaping the content of the law and its economic impact. Time-series analysis using a new dataset on legal change from the 1970s to the mid-2000s shows evidence of positive correlations between regulation and growth in employment and productivity, at least for France and Germany. No relationship, either positive or negative, is found for the UK, and although the US shows a weak negative relationship between regulation and employment growth, this is offset by productivity gains. |
| Keywords: | labour law, employment, productivity, redistribution, complementarities, legal origins, varieties of capitalism |
| JEL: | K31 J83 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp367&r=eff |
| By: | Seidu Al-hassan |
| Abstract: | Examining the level of farm-specific technical efficiency of farmers growing irrigated and non-irrigated rice in Northern Ghana, this study fitted cross-sectional data into a transcendental logarithmic (translog) production frontier. The study concludes that rice farmers are technically inefficient. There is no significant difference in mean technical efficiencies for non-irrigators (53%) and irrigators (51%). The main determinants of technical efficiency in the study area are education, extension contact, age and family size. Providing farmers with both formal and informal education will be a useful investment and a good mechanism for improving efficiency in rice farming. There is also need for training more qualified extension agents and motivating them to deliver. |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aer:rpaper:rp_178&r=eff |
| By: | Alex Bryson; Richard Freeman |
| Abstract: | This paper uses nationally representative linked workplace-employee data from the British 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey to examine the operation of shared capitalist forms of pay--profit-sharing and group pay for performance, employee share ownership, and stock options--and their link to productivity. It shows that shared capitalism has grown in the UK, as it has in the US; that different forms of shared capitalist pay complement each other and other labor practices in the sense that firms use them together more than they would if they chose modes of pay and work practices independently; and that workplaces switch among schemes frequently, which suggests that they have trouble optimizing and the transactions cost of switching are relatively low. Among the single schemes, share ownership has the clearest positive association with productivity, but its impact is largest when firms combine it with other forms of shared capitalist pay and modes of organization. |
| JEL: | J33 L23 L25 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14235&r=eff |
| By: | Rupert Harrison; Jordi Jaumandreu; Jacques Mairesse; Bettina Peters |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of process and product innovations introduced by firms on employment growth in these firms. A simple model that relates employment growth to process innovations and to the growth of sales separately due to innovative and unchanged products is developed and estimated using comparable firm-level data from France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Results show that displacement effects induced by productivity growth in the production of old products are large, while those associated with process innovations, which are likely to be compensated by price decreases, appear to be small. The effects related to product innovations are, however, strong enough to overcompensate these displacement effects. |
| JEL: | D2 J23 L1 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14216&r=eff |
| By: | Lawless, Martina; Murphy, Alan |
| Abstract: | While growth in output and employment remains relatively strong in the Irish economy, there has been considerable focus recently on some high-profile job losses, particularly in the manufacturing sector. This paper places these developments within a broader context and shows that aggregate changes in the net number of jobs arise from large numbers of firms both increasing and decreasing employment simultaneously at all points in time. Even at the height of the Celtic Tiger boom when employment grew by 8 percent, this was the result of 15 percent growth in jobs by expanding firms offset by 7 percent of positions being eliminated in firms that were contracting their workforces. One important feature of job flows is that they may contribute to productivity growth by allowing movements from low to high productivity firms. To a degree, this reflects the re-allocation of jobs from declining sectors to expanding sectors, but this is not a comprehensive explanation. A significant factor underlying job flows is the reallocation within sectors from under-performing firms to expanding firms. This study also shows that productivity growth is, on balance, positive for employment growth, as it results, more often than not, in increased employment and higher earnings rather than job losses. On the other hand, these calculations also show how hard it is for policy-makers to identify firms that will be employment and productivity growth winners. |
| Keywords: | Job flows; productivity; Irish economy |
| JEL: | J21 J23 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10009&r=eff |