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on Efficiency and Productivity |
| By: | Nano, Enrico |
| Abstract: | Food insecurity is one of the world’s greatest challenges and there is still a strong debate on which structural strategies should be adopted to cope with it. In sub-Saharan Africa food insecurity is accompanied by very poor technical efficiency of farmers, particularly smallholders, resulting in below potential agricultural profits. The food security and technical efficiency challenges can be tackled with some common solutions: this paper studies the relation between agricultural technical efficiency and food insecurity in Nigeria using a two-step approach. It first estimates farmers’ technical efficiency, employing a profit stochastic frontier framework on three waves of Nigeria’s General Household Survey between 2010 and 2016. Then, it assesses the impact of these estimates on mild, moderate and severe measures of food insecurity at the province level, thanks to both probit and biprobit models with a rich set of covariates, including demographic, economic, agricultural and geographic characteristics. The results suggest that technical efficiency improvements are particularly effective in reducing the more severe types of food insecurity: an increase by 1 percent in technical efficiency reduces moderate (severe) food insecurity by 0.40 (0.45) percent. Therefore, policies aimed at improving farmers’ technical efficiency can also have a strong impact on reducing food insecurity. |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Food Security and Poverty, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, Research Research Methods/Statistical Methods |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:faoaes:365830 |
| By: | Jirjahn, Uwe (University of Trier); Mohrenweiser, Jens (Bournemouth University) |
| Abstract: | Since the emergence of personnel economics, economists have been increasingly aware that the management practices used by firms are an important determinant of productivity. However, it is an open question of whether the impact of management practices on the productivity of firms depends on workplace health promotion activities (alternatively called workplace wellness programs). Using a widely recognized management index developed by Bloom and Van Reenen (2007), this study provides evidence that workplace health promotion moderates the link between management practices and productivity. Our panel data estimates show that the positive impact of management practices on productivity is stronger if a firm engages in workplace health promotion. This finding fits the notion that workplace health promotion mitigates adverse side effects of management practices on employees’ health. However, our estimates also provide evidence of a negative direct influence of workplace promotion on productivity. The positive moderating influence of workplace health promotion only dominates the negative direct influence if a firm uses Bloom and Van Reenen’s management practices (targets, monitoring and incentives) at a high intensity. |
| Keywords: | workplace wellness programs, employee health, incentives, monitoring, targets, firm performance |
| JEL: | I10 J24 J28 J81 M50 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18059 |
| By: | Federico Huneeus; Yasutaka Koike-Mori; Antonio Martner |
| Abstract: | We present an aggregation result that structurally dissects the drivers of aggregate productivity, i.e., technology and the reallocation of resources, across arbitrary parts of the economy using sufficient statistics that can be measured with standard datasets. Besides the typical statistics of factor shares and distortion changes, consumption share changes emerge as a new sufficient statistics that capture an income redistribution channel between households. This channel reflects how changes in households’ income propagate upstream, influencing the allocation of resources across firms. We apply our results to revisit Chile’s aggregate productivity stagnation since 2010, leveraging two decades of administrative firm-to-firm data. This stagnation is almost entirely driven by the reallocation of resources. Exports of mining, domestic output of manufacturing and retail, and incumbent large firms shape the bulk of this stagnation. |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchwp:1050 |
| By: | Sipeng Zeng; Xiaoning Wang; Tianshu Sun |
| Abstract: | Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great promise for enhancing innovation and productivity, many firms struggle to realize its benefits. We investigate why some firms and industries succeed with AI while others do not, focusing on the degree to which an industrial domain is technologically integrated with AI, which we term "domain AI readiness". Using panel data on Chinese listed firms from 2016 to 2022, we examine how the interaction between firm-level AI capabilities and domain AI readiness affects firm performance. We create novel constructs from patent data and measure the domain AI readiness of a specific domain by analyzing the co-occurrence of four-digit International Patent Classification (IPC4) codes related to AI with the specific domain across all patents in that domain. Our findings reveal a strong complementarity: AI capabilities yield greater productivity and innovation gains when deployed in domains with higher AI readiness, whereas benefits are limited in domains that are technologically unprepared or already obsolete. These results remain robust when using local AI policy initiatives as instrumental variables. Further analysis shows that this complementarity is driven by external advances in domain-AI integration, rather than firms' own strategic pivots. Time-series analysis of IPC4 co-occurrence patterns further suggests that improvements in domain AI readiness stem primarily from the academic advancements of AI in specific domains. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.09634 |
| By: | Improta, Martina; De la O Campos, Ana Paula; Petracco, Carly; Davis, Benjamin |
| Abstract: | This study provides country-level estimates of productive inputs and assets utilized by farming households, including land, fertilizers, agrochemicals, water management technologies, improved seeds, and mechanization in 19 countries across the world covering the period 2014–2020, using the latest nationally representative survey. Additionally, we explore inputs’ distribution across various dimensions such as household per capita consumption, crop income specialization, and the gender of the household head, while considering the level of agricultural productivity across countries as proxied by agricultural value added per worker. Our descriptive analysis reveals that farming households continue to face challenges in accessing inputs, assets, and water sources to support agricultural production in most of the countries analysed regardless of their productivity level. A gender gap persists in access to land and inputs, in all the countries analysed, regardless of their rural transformation path. Our empirical analysis emphasizes the significance of utilizing these inputs and assets, highlighting their potential to increase crop income for households in our sample of countries. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Security and Poverty, Productivity Analysis |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:faoaes:365820 |
| By: | Zhou, Weizhong; Liu, Chunlu; Zhou, Yu; Li, Qihui; Wang, Yuanhua |
| Abstract: | As an environmental policy, the Action Plan of Atmosphere Pollution Control in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Surrounding Areas in Autumn and Winter (Action Plan of APC) was implemented in 2017, with the goal of achieving the sustainable growth of the regional economy. This study examines the effect of the Action Plan of APC on green total factor productivity (GTFP) in the Chinese construction industry employing a difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The findings indicate the following: Firstly, the environmental policy of the Action Plan of APC has significantly improved the GTFP of the aforementioned areas, and the result is still valid after robustness testing; secondly, the dynamic effect testing reveals that the influence follows an increasing trend over time; thirdly, due to the different degrees of marketization, the influence of the Action Plan of APC on GTFP in Chinese construction industry exhibits notable regional heterogeneity. From the perspectives of both the government and enterprises, this study offers recommendations for promoting the GTFP of China’s construction industry. It also provides a novel framework for assessing the effect of environmental policies on the GTFP of the Chinese construction industry. |
| Keywords: | air pollution; green growth; GTFP; DID model |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129092 |