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on Efficiency and Productivity |
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Issue of 2023‒08‒28
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Hatami-Marbini, A.; Arabmaldar, A. |
| Date: | 2021–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:138965&r=eff |
| By: | Bournakis, Ioannis; Tsionas, Mike G. |
| Abstract: | We developed a non-parametric technique to measure Total Factor Productivity (TFP). Our paper has two major novelties in estimating the production function. First, we propose a productivity modelling with both idiosyncratic firm factors and aggregate shocks within the same framework. Second, we apply Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation techniques to overcome restrictions associated with monotonicity between productivity and variable inputs and moment conditions in identifying input parameters. We implemented our methodology in a group of 4286 manufacturing firms from France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom (2001-2014). The results show that: (i) aggregate shocks matter for firm TFP evolution. The global financial crisis of 2008 caused severe adverse effects on TFP albeit short in duration; (ii) there is substantial heterogeneity across countries in the way firms react to changes in R&D and taxation. German and U.K. firms are more sensitive to fiscal changes than R\&D, while Italian firms are the opposite. R\&D and taxation effects are symmetrical for French firms; (iii) the U.K. productivity handicap continued for years after the financial crisis; (iv) industrial clusters promote knowledge diffusion among German and Italian firms. |
| Keywords: | Total Factor Productivity (TFP), Control Function, Non-parametric Bayesian Estimation, Markov Chain Monte Carlo(MCMC), Research and Development (R\&D), Taxation, European firms |
| JEL: | C11 D24 H21 H25 Q55 |
| Date: | 2023–07–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:118100&r=eff |
| By: | Cantner, Uwe; Grashof, Nils; Grebel, Thomas; Zhang, Xijie |
| Abstract: | Since the Bologna Process, universities have experienced a tremendous increase in competitive pressure. The Excellence Initiative is a path-breaking initiative to the historically-based egalitarian higher education system in Germany to boost universities' competitiveness and the competition among universities. Despite this systematic change, it remains rather unclear to what extent the Excellence Initiative influences the performance. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the Excellence Initiative on universities relative productivity in teaching and research and hence on the divergence or convergence of universities in these performance dimensions. Based on a unique dataset that combines publication and detailed university-level data, we apply a two-step approach by calculating relative productivity with a non-parametric procedure in the first step and using a difference-in-difference approach for estimating treatment effects of the Excellence Initiative in the second step. Overall, we note only a few moments when universities funded by the Excellence Initiative seem to excel and make progress compared to non-funded universities. In research, only some of the Excellence-funded universities, particularly the winners of the Graduate Schools and Clusters of Excellence funding line, manage to improve significantly, even if only for a few years. In teaching, we found no significant average treatment effect of the Excellence Initiative, but a slightly significant time-specific decline in relative teaching productivity two years after funding. |
| Keywords: | Excellence Initiative, Universities, Relative Productivity, DEA, Difference-in-difference, Funding |
| JEL: | C22 I20 I23 I25 I28 |
| Date: | 2023–07–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:118139&r=eff |
| By: | Swayamsiddha Sarangi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the sub-sectoral contributions to aggregate manufacturing labor share decline in the US between 1979 and 2019. Using the Log Mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition, the decline in the manufacturing sector’s labor share is decomposed into contributions from real wage growth, labor productivity growth, changes in employment shares, and relative prices arising from the constituent subsectors across three business cycles. The primary findings of the paper suggest that the downward decoupling of real wages from labor productivity is the primary contributor to the labor share decline in manufacturing. Moreover, low labor share sub-sectors (especially Chemical products, Food and Beverage and Tobacco products, and Petroleum and Coal products) have experienced an increase in their employment shares, contributing negatively to aggregate manufacturing labor share. Despite some similarities between manufacturing sub-sectors, this paper emphasizes the heterogeneity across sub-sectors to understand the possible mechanisms behind the decline of labor share. |
| Keywords: | laborshare, manufacturing, subsectors, Divisia decomposition JEL Classification: J30, J31, E24, L6 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2023_07&r=eff |
| By: | Ruochen Dai; Dilip Mookherjee; Kaivan Munshi; Xiaobo Zhang |
| Abstract: | This research examines the determinants of entrepreneurship in the initial transition from agriculture to industrial production and the subsequent transition to higher value exporting in China. Using data covering the universe of registered firms over the 1994-2009 period, we find that individuals born in rural counties with higher agricultural productivity and population density had a greater propensity to enter domestic production in the first transition, but that this association was reversed in the second transition to exporting. This is despite the fact that revenues (and productivity) were increasing more steeply over time for firms drawn from denser birth counties in both activities. The model that we develop to reconcile these facts incorporates a productivity enhancing role for hometown (birth county) networks. We provide causal evidence, using shift-share instruments, that these networks of firms were active and that more densely populated rural counties gave rise to networks that were more effective at increasing the revenues of their members, both in domestic production and exporting. While this generated faster transition in the first stage, the incumbent (more successful) domestic networks drawn from denser counties created a disincentive to subsequently enter exporting. Our analysis identifies a novel dynamic inefficiency that could arise in any developing economy where (overlapping) networks are active. |
| JEL: | O11 O12 O14 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31477&r=eff |
| By: | Kym Anderson |
| Abstract: | The agricultural sector’s share of GDP in growing economies typically declines but, for a century from the early 1850s, Australia’s did not. Drawing on recent structural transformation literature, this paper seeks explanations for this unusual phenomenon, which is all the more striking because agriculture’s share of employment continued to decline throughout and growth in manufacturing was being stimulated by tariff protection from imports. Several factors contributed, including a huge land frontier that took more than a century for settlers to explore, rapid declines in initially crippling domestic and ocean trade costs for farm products, the absence of a need to do any processing of the two main exports during that period (gold and wool), and innovations by farmers and via a strong public agricultural R&D system that contributed to farm labour productivity nearly doubling over those ten decades. The ban on iron ore exports from 1938 and low export prices for fuels, minerals and metals during the two world wars and in the intervening decades also contributed. |
| Keywords: | agricultural development, farm productivity growth, trade costs, mining booms, manufacturing protection |
| JEL: | F13 F63 N47 O13 Q17 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:papers:2023-09&r=eff |
| By: | Juliette Huguet (SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Christophe Chassard (UMRF - Unité Mixte de Recherche sur le Fromage - VAS - VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); René Lavigne (UMRF - Unité Mixte de Recherche sur le Fromage - VAS - VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Françoise Irlinger (SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Isabelle Souchon (SQPOV - Sécurité et Qualité des Produits d'Origine Végétale - AU - Avignon Université - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Stephan Marette (UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Anne Saint-Eve (SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Caroline Pénicaud (SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | In the food industry, there is currently a great deal of interest in the development of plant-based alternatives to dairy products. However, little is known about the ways in which differences in formulation and/or processing affect the potential environmental benefits of such products. In this study, we investigated the environmental performance of four new fermented products created using different mixtures of plant- (pea) and animal- (cow milk) derived protein sources and prepared using a cheese-technology process (Camembert production). Life cycle assessments (LCAs) were performed that included all steps from the agricultural production of ingredients to the generation of the final ready-to-eat product. The goals were to identify the hotspots of this production system and to compare the different products to each other as well as to other common fermented or legume-based products (Camembert, tofu, hummus). The LCA results revealed that the two main hotspots for the mixed products were milk production (when used) and the ripening stage. All four products were similar with respect to the environmental impacts related to processing. Instead, with regard to the impacts of agricultural production, the products made with a higher proportion of pea protein were superior, providing clear evidence of the potential environmental benefit of pea-milk fermented foods. Overall, though, the mixed products did not present any environmental benefit compared to Camembert, hummus, and tofu due to the complex and energy-intensive nature of the manufacturing process. It is therefore critical that these processing steps be simplified and optimized in order to realize the environmental potential of such pea-based products. |
| Keywords: | Legumes, Dairy products, Life cycle assessment (LCA), Fermentation, Sustainable diets, Sustainable proteins |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04132788&r=eff |
| By: | Vanessa Cirulli (Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Italy); Giorgia Marini (Department of Juridical and Economic Studies (DSGE), Sapienza University of Rome); Marco A. Marini (Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Sapienza University of Rome); Odd Rune Straume (NIPE/Center for Research in Economics and Management, University of Minho, Portugal; and Department of Economics, University of Bergen, Norway) |
| Abstract: | We analyse - theoretically and empirically- the effect of hospital mergers on waiting times in healthcare markets where prices are fixed. Using a spatial modelling framework where patients choose provider based on travelling distance and waiting times, we show that the effect is theoretically ambiguous. In the presence of cost synergies, the scope for lower waiting times as a result of the merger is larger if the hospitals are more profit- oriented. This result is arguably confirmed by our empirical analysis, which is based on a conditional flexible difference-in-differences methodology applied to a long panel of data on hospital merger in the English NHS, where we find that the effects of a merger on waiting times crucially rely on a legal status that can reasonably be linked to the degree of profit-orientation. Whereas hospital mergers involving Foundation Trusts tend to reduce waiting times, the corresponding effect of mergers involving hospitals without this legal status tends to go in the opposite direction. |
| Keywords: | Hospital merger; waiting times; profit-orientation |
| JEL: | I11 I18 L21 L41 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:07/2023&r=eff |
| By: | Sulasula, Josephine |
| Abstract: | This research study examines the effects of social media addiction on the daily work performance of government employees in the Zamboanga Peninsula Region of the Philippines. Drawing upon the sampled government employees, data were collected through surveys and analyzed using statistical techniques. The study investigates the relationship between social media addiction and work performance. Results indicate a significant negative correlation between social media addiction and work performance among government employees in the region (r = -0.45, p |
| Keywords: | social media addiction, work performance, government employees, Zamboanga Peninsula Region |
| JEL: | I0 I1 I10 I18 I19 I2 I23 I3 I30 I31 M0 M00 M1 M10 M12 M54 |
| Date: | 2023–07–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117995&r=eff |