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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2014‒10‒13
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Rosario Sanchez; Maria Angeles Diaz |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:002721:272100076&r=eff |
| By: | Marco Cucculelli (Universit… Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze economiche e sociali); Lidia Mannarino (University of Calabria, Department of Economics and Statistics); Valeria Pupo (University of Calabria, Department of Economics and Statistics); Fernanda Ricotta (University of Calabria, Department of Economics and Statistics) |
| Abstract: | Using Total Factor Productivity (TFP) as a measure of corporate performance, we find that Italian family-run firms are less productive than firms run by outside managers and the result is robust to potential endogeneity of management regime. This difference tends to vanish when the age of the firms is taken into account. |
| Keywords: | Family firms, Management, TFP |
| JEL: | D24 G34 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wmofir:99&r=eff |
| By: | Blanca SANCHEZ-ROBLES; Nuria SANCHEZ-SANCHEZ; Pablo COTO MILLAN |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:003306:330600123&r=eff |
| By: | Sophia du Plessis (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Ada Jansen (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Dieter von Fintel (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the economic viability of slavery in the Cape Colony of southern Africa. It has been extensively documented that the affluence of elites was built on the importation of slaves. However, the Dutch East India Company or Verengide Oost-indische Companje (VOC), which administrated the colony, expressed concerns that free settlers had invested too much capital in the trade, so that some indications exist that profitability was not certain for all farmers. In this paper hedonic slave price indices and the value of their marginal productivity have been estimated, to construct annual returns, which are in turn compared with returns on other investments for the period 1700-1725. Hedonic price functions were estimated to remove the anticipated lifetime returns that slaves would yield, and to isolate buyers’ perceived depreciation of the slave for one year. Cobb-Douglas production functions were estimated for average farmers, as well as at various quintiles along the distribution, to evaluate scale effects. Large farmers enjoyed high returns to slavery over most of the period, confirming the assertions that the elite used slaves profitably. Small farmers, however, did not recoup slave costs from agricultural production: this suggests either that they overinvested in slavery relative to other capital goods (e.g. ploughs or wagons), or that they used slaves profitably outside of agriculture. |
| Keywords: | Cape Colony, Productivity of slaves, Profitability of slaves |
| JEL: | J47 J21 N37 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers222&r=eff |
| By: | Melody Lo; Sunny Wong; Franklin G. Mixon; Carlos J. Asarta (Department of Economics, University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | Journal rankings have been used as a common low-cost management tool by academic institutions to measure research productivity among scholars. In this paper, we extend the work by Lo et al. (2008) that produced rankings of economics journals, departments, and economists based on teaching-focused research productivity. In particular, we update these rankings by using both a more refined ranking method published in Econometrica (Palacios-Huerta and Volij, 2004) and a larger database consisting of 1,172 articles published across 20 economics journals from 1991 to 2011. In addition, we produce a new ranking that provides a list of the top 20 most influential articles in the field of economic education. Our findings should be of interest to university administrators, researchers publishing in the field of economic education and students seeking graduate programs with a research focus in economic education. |
| Keywords: | Economic Education |
| JEL: | A10 A2 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:14-14.&r=eff |
| By: | Crafts, Nicholas (CAGE, The University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper re-examines output and productivity growth during the British industrial revolution in the light of recent research. Revised estimates are presented which incorporate new findings on the structure of employment, in particular, that the level of industrialization in the mid-18th century is now known to be considerably higher than was assumed in earlier work. This implies that industrial labour productivity growth was faster than believed by authors of the 1980s but still slower than earlier writers claimed. It is shown that in most important respects the Crafts-Harley view of macroeconomic growth remains basically intact. |
| Keywords: | industrial revolution; productivity growth; take-off |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:204&r=eff |