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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2021‒11‒08
fifteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Gottwald-Belinic, Martina |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the heterogeneity of resource efficiency and investigate the associations of productivity and efficiency in relationship to ownership, region and access to capital within the Chinese manufacturing sector. We use the Hicks- Moorsteen Index to decompose within a firm efficiency conditional on ownership, sectors, and provinces for the period from 1998 until 2007. The results show a high heterogeneity of labor and capital resource efficiency among the firms. The pace of economic growth required capital investment in the sector. The consolidated results show higher misallocation of capital for State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) compared to private firms. The factor accumulation within SOEs contributed to a higher deterioration of resources. Our findings indicate necessity for growth in efficiency and support policy development for improved resource reallocation. |
| Keywords: | Total Factor Productivity (TFP), China’s new development stage, Industrial Upgrading in China, Output and TFP Growth Potential |
| JEL: | D24 L53 O12 O53 |
| Date: | 2021–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110372&r= |
| By: | Thomas Grebel; Mauro Napoletano (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Lionel Nesta (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We study the productivity level distributions of manufacturing firms in France and Germany, and how these distributions evolved across the Great Recession. We show the presence of a systematic productivity advantage of German firms over French ones in the decade 2003-2013, but the gap has narrowed down after the Great Recession. Convergence is explained by the better growth performance of French firms in the post-recession period, especially of those located in the top percentiles of the productivity distribution. We also highlight the role of sectoral growth, firm size and export intensity in explaining the above convergence. In contrast, the contribution of allocative efficiency was small. |
| Keywords: | international productivity gaps,productivity distributions,firm level comparisons |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03374310&r= |
| By: | Lilas Demmou; Guido Franco |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses the role of loan guarantee programmes following the COVID-19 outbreak in alleviating firm distress as well as their broader impacts on productivity via reallocation, relying on a simulation model and econometric estimations. The simulation exercise relies on a simple cash-flow accounting model, a large dataset reporting balance sheets of firms located in 14 countries and granular data on the magnitude of the COVID-19 shock. Our findings suggest that i) the COVID-19 shock had the potential to seriously distort market selection; and ii) policy actions corrected up to 30% of the inefficiency of market selection in the short-term, shielding many high productive firms from distress and supporting zombie firms only to a limited extent. The econometric exercise, based on historical data and standard models of dynamic allocative efficiency, examines how loan guarantees may shape the efficiency through which resources are allocated across firms of different productivity levels over the medium-term. Results suggest that, over the 2007-2018 period, increases in large-scale loan guarantee schemes were associated with weaker reallocation of credit and labour from low to high productivity firms. However, these effects are found to be more benign in intangible-intensive sectors and even positive for smaller scale programmes. Overall, engineering an effective exit strategy from these schemes, preserving their benefits while reducing their drawbacks through a gradual and state contingent phasing out, is critical to foster the recovery of the corporate sector. Further, monitoring debt overhang risks and facilitating firms’ entry and digital diffusion are relevant complementary challenges to address once COVID-19 related support is withdrawn. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, liquidity, loan guarantees, productivity, reallocation |
| JEL: | D22 D24 H81 J38 O47 |
| Date: | 2021–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1687-en&r= |
| By: | Ojo, Olanike; Ojo, Michael A.; Ajani, Yusuf; Oseghale, Agatha; Busari, A.O. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Land Economics/Use |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae21:315189&r= |
| By: | Guohua Feng; Jiti Gao; Bin Peng |
| Abstract: | Despite its paramount importance in the empirical growth literature, productivity convergence analysis has three problems that have yet to be resolved: (1) little attempt has been made to explore the hierarchical structure of industry-level datasets; (2) industry-level technology heterogeneity has largely been ignored; and (3) cross-sectional dependence has rarely been allowed for. This paper aims to address these three problems within a hierarchical panel data framework. We propose an estimation procedure and then derive the corresponding asymptotic theory. Finally, we apply the framework to a dataset of 23 manufacturing industries from a wide range of countries over the period 1963-2018. Our results show that both the manufacturing industry as a whole and individual manufacturing industries at the ISIC two-digit level exhibit strong conditional convergence in labour productivity, but not unconditional convergence. In addition, our results show that both global and industry-specific shocks are important in explaining the convergence behaviours of the manufacturing industries. |
| Keywords: | growth regressions, convergence in manufacturing, cross-sectional dependence, hierarchical model, asymptotic theory |
| JEL: | L60 O10 C23 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msh:ebswps:2021-16&r= |
| By: | Erhardt, Katharina; Egger, Peter; Nigai, Sergey |
| JEL: | F1 F10 F12 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242392&r= |
| By: | Greve, Hannes; Kis-Katos, Krisztina; Renner, Sebastian |
| JEL: | O14 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242382&r= |
| By: | Kumar, Suresh; Singh, Dharm Raj; Mondal, Biswajit; Palanisamy, Venkatesh; Kumar, Anil |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Productivity Analysis |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae21:315343&r= |
| By: | Jesus Felipe; John McCombie; Aashish Mehta; Donna Faye Bajaro |
| Abstract: | The possible endogeneity of labor and capital in production functions, and the consequent bias of the estimated elasticities, has been discussed and addressed in the literature in different ways since the 1940s. This paper revisits an argument first outlined in the 1950s, which questioned production function estimations. This argument is that output, capital, and employment are linked through a distribution accounting identity, a key point that the recent literature has overlooked. This identity can be rewritten as a form that resembles a production function (Cobb-Douglas, CES, translog). We show that this happens because the data used in empirical exercises are value (monetary) data, not physical quantities. The argument has clear predictions about the size of the factor elasticities and about what is commonly interpreted as the bias of the estimated elasticities. To test these predictions, we estimate a typical Cobb-Douglas function using five estimators and show that: (i) the identity is responsible for the fact that the elasticities must be the factor shares; (ii) the bias of the estimated elasticities (i.e., departure from the factor shares) is, in reality, caused by the omission of a term in the identity. However, unlike in the standard omitted-variable bias problem, here the omitted term is known; and (iii) the estimation method is a second-order issue. Estimation methods that theoretically deal with endogeneity, including the most recent ones, cannot solve this problem. We conclude that the use of monetary values rather than physical data poses an insoluble problem for the estimation of production functions. This is, consequently, far more serious than any supposed endogeneity problems. |
| Keywords: | Accounting Identity; Endogeneity; Monetary Values; Production Functions; Total Factor Productivity |
| JEL: | C18 C81 C82 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_994&r= |
| By: | Nguyen, Thanh Tung; Nguyen, Trung Thanh; Nguyen, Duy Linh; Do, Manh Hung; Grote, Ulrike |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae21:314955&r= |
| By: | Kilombele, Happiness; Chegere, Martin; Feleke, Shiferaw; Abdoulaye, Tahirou; Cole, Steven M.; Manyong, Victor |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae21:315387&r= |
| By: | Sofia Patsali (Université Côte d'Azur, France; CNRS, GREDEG); Michele Pezzoni (Université Côte d'Azur, France; CNRS, GREDEG); Fabiana Visentin (Maastricht University; UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effect of research independence during the PhD period on students' career outcomes. We use a unique and detailed dataset on the French population of STEM PhD students who graduated between 1995 and 2013. To measure research independence, we compare the PhD thesis content with the supervisor's research. We employ advanced neural network text analysis techniques evaluating the similarity between student's thesis abstract and supervisor's publications during the PhD period. After exploring which characteristics of the PhD training experience and supervisor explain the level of research similarity, we estimate how similarity associates with the likelihood of pursuing a research career. We find that the student thesis's similarity with her supervisor's research work is negatively associated with starting a career in academia and patenting probability. Increasing the PhD-supervisor similarity score by one standard deviation is associated with a 2.1 percentage point decrease in the probability of obtaining an academic position and a 0.57 percentage point decrease in the probability of patenting. However, conditional on starting an academic career, PhD-supervisor similarity is associated with a higher student's productivity after graduation as measured by citations received, network size, and probability of moving to a foreign or US-based affiliation. |
| Keywords: | Research independence, Early career researchers, Scientific career outcomes, Neural network text analysis |
| JEL: | D22 O30 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2021-35&r= |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università di Roma Tor Vergata); Sara Mancini (Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università di Roma Tor Vergata); Nazaria Solferino (Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | Based on results of the different fields of the game theoretic literature on strategic interactions and social dilemmas, gift exchange and procedural utility, we argue that corporate social responsibility and relational skills i) with other firms; ii) between employers and workers iii) among workers and iv) with stakeholders are associated to positive effects on productivity. We test our research hypothesis on a large representative sample of Italian firms including the universe of medium and large companies and accounting for 91.3 percent of domestic employees. We find that companies with higher relational skills report significantly higher value added per worker after controlling for relevant concurring factors. More specifically, the identified significant skill related components are: i) corporate policies considering strategic workers’ wellbeing; ii) team working attitudes considered as priority soft skills when hiring workers; iii) initiatives in favour of the productive network operating in the same local area and iv) involvement of stakeholders in CSR projects. |
| Keywords: | relational skills, corporate productivity, gift exchange, team working |
| JEL: | L22 L25 L14 J53 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:202106&r= |
| By: | Rimvie Enoc Kabore (LEDi - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dijon [Dijon] - UB - Université de Bourgogne - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE]) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between public capital and manufacturing export performance. It also aims at investigating whether this relationship depends on the proximity of a country's technology frontier. To achieve this, we adopted a methodology that estimates the elasticities of public capital as a non-rival factor in a model that considers factor intensity as a mechanism of industrial development. We use an interaction model with panel data from 1999 to 2014 across 35 advanced and less advanced countries. Our results show that in countries far from the technology frontier, public capital accumulation is an element of industrial development as opposed to countries close to the technology frontier. The elasticity of public capital becomes more important in magnitude, particularly for African countries. |
| Keywords: | proximity to the technological frontier,Public infrastructure,Comparative advantage,Manufacturing exports |
| Date: | 2021–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03359665&r= |
| By: | Lucas Bretschger (Center of Economic Research, ETH Zurich, Zurichbergstrasse 18, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland); Ara Jo (Center of Economic Research, ETH Zurich, Zurichbergstrasse 18, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | This paper adds a fresh angle to the on-going debate on the potential negative employment effect of environmental policy by bringing to the fore a key factor that directly regulates its magnitude: the elasticity of substitution between labor and energy. Using firm-level data from the French manufacturing sector, we provide rigorous micro estimates of this parameter that point to strong complementarity between labor and energy. We then provide clear evidence for the empirical, as well as theoretical, relevance of the elasticity of substitution in understanding the effect of environmental policies on employment. |
| Keywords: | market-based regulation, employment, elasticity of substitution |
| JEL: | Q40 Q54 Q55 O33 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:21-364&r= |