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on Efficiency and Productivity |
| By: | Zecharias Anteneh; Adriana Castelli; Peter Sivey; Andrew Street; Jinglin Wen; Joy Adamson |
| Abstract: | Whether organisational separation of elective and emergency care improves physician productivity remains an open question. Most existing evidence relies on cross-sectional comparisons or volume-based outcomes that cannot isolate efficiency gains from input expansion or provider selection. In contrast, this paper exploits the staggered rollout of NHS England's surgical hub programme, a set of dedicated ring-fenced elective facilities introduced as part of its Elective Recovery Plan, to provide causal estimates of the effect of elective-emergency separation on physician productivity. Using this rollout to implement a heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences design, we estimate the impact of hub adoption on physician productivity measured as cost-weighted elective output per unit of salary-weighted physician input. We find that hub adoption increases physician productivity by 14.5% relative to the no-hub counterfactual, accompanied by a 10-day (7.6%) reduction in average patient waiting times. The size of these gains depends on how completely elective care is insulated from emergency pathways. Standalone hubs situated on dedicated elective-only sites achieve relatively larger productivity gains than integrated hubs located within main acute hospital sites. Moreover, operating multiple hubs yields gains more than double the overall average, whereas a single hub shows no statistically significant effect. For health systems seeking to raise physician productivity and address elective backlogs, these findings suggest that how separation is implemented, not simply whether it is adopted, shapes the productivity gains it delivers. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.10380 |
| By: | De Ridder, Maarten; Rachel, Lukasz |
| Abstract: | In many economies, the recent productivity slowdown coincided with declines in carbon dioxide emissions. Productivity statistics ignore this progress, even though lower emissions raise future consumption. We propose emissions-adjusted total factor productivity (TFPE), a forward-looking, welfare-relevant productivity measure. TFPE requires few assumptions, relying on the social cost of carbon as a sufficient statistic. At recent consensus estimates of the social cost of carbon, U.S. TFPE could grow twice as fast as TFP during a transition to net zero by 2050. At these costs of carbon, historical productivity adjustments are modest; at higher values, the post-2005 U.S. productivity slowdown disappears. In other countries, TFPE growth significantly exceeds TFP growth during the 1990s. |
| Keywords: | total factor productivity;growth accounting;national accounts;climate damages |
| JEL: | N0 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2026–09–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140962 |
| By: | Wei Qiao; Lianming Zhu |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how heterogeneous factor-augmenting productivity shapes factor allocation, aggregate labor share, and misallocation. In Chinese manufacturing, more labor-productive firms have lower labor shares, higher capital intensity, and lower employment. We first prove that, under empirically motivated restrictions on factor-market frictions, this joint pattern requires heterogeneity in relative factor-augmenting productivity. We then develop an approach that simultaneously identifies firm-level capital- and labor-augmenting productivities, labor markdowns, and marginal capital expenditures. As a validation exercise, we exploit China’s value-added tax reform that lowered equipment costs and find that the calibrated ratio of capital-augmenting to labor-augmenting productivity rises. Counterfactuals show that this ratio is central to the employment-productivity relationship and the aggregate labor share. Accounting for this heterogeneity shifts the inferred composition of misallocation toward capital and reverses the comovement of the marginal revenue products of capital and labor. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1321 |
| By: | Aitor Irastorza-Fadrique; Lars Nesheim; Peter Levell |
| Abstract: | Since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the UK has experienced persistently weak productivity and corporate investment alongside a sustained decline in corporate leverage. We use a large annual panel of UK firms drawn from the FAME database to document and decompose these long-run trends over 2006–2023. Our productivity results confirm earlier evidence of weak growth and widening differences between leading firms and the rest, while extending the firm-level analysis through 2023 and to finance and insurance. Across productivity, investment, and leverage, we distinguish common time effects affecting incumbent firms from compositional effects associated with firm entry and exit. Productivity weakness after 2016 is primarily observed within incumbent firms. The investment slowdown is likewise concentrated after 2016 and driven mainly by declining investment intensity within firms. For leverage, compositional changes account for an important part of the decline around the Global Financial Crisis, whereas subsequent deleveraging occurs primarily within incumbent firms. |
| Date: | 2026–09–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:azt:cemmap:15/26 |
| By: | Fazliddin Shermatov; Stephane Robin; Aldo Geuna |
| Abstract: | Whether artificial intelligence pays off for the firms that build it into their products is hard to establish, because AI innovation is itself hard to observe. The medical technology sector is a rare exception: an AI-enabled device must obtain clearance from a national health authority before it can reach a patient, leaving a dated, firm-attributable record of AI innovation output that can be observed directly rather than proxied. We exploit this setting with a three-stage recursive model estimated on a novel firm-level dataset linking FDA premarket clearances, USPTO patents, Scopus publications, and Orbis financials, tracing the full innovation chain from external collaboration through AI device introduction to firm performance. We find that external AI research collaboration is a robust driver of AI device introduction across firm sizes and estimators, with a larger effect for small firms, consistent with external knowledge ties substituting for limited internal R&D capacity. Decomposing by partner type, the effect is largest for industry and clinical collaborations and smallest for academic ties, consistent with the former being closer to the regulatory and commercialisation process. Firms that bring AI devices to market display higher labour productivity, an effect robust for small firms and the full sample that holds under both sequential and joint maximum-likelihood estimation and accumulates across successive device introductions. Effects on profit margins are present but weaker and do not survive all specifications, a pattern consistent with competitive entry eroding pricing power as AI devices diffuse through the sector. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.08485 |
| By: | Leogrande, Angelo; Di Molfetta, Mauro; Nortarnicola, Valeria; Trotta, Maria Giovanna; Plantamura, Antonio Volpe |
| Abstract: | Studies of small-firm profitability estimate financial structure as the focal regressor and treat cost composition as an unexamined control. This paper reverses the emphasis and places both blocks in one equation, estimated on 91, 756 firm-year observations covering 14, 913 unlisted Italian firms across three regulatory regimes. Three methods interrogate different assumptions on the same sample: panel estimation across fourteen specifications, unsupervised partitioning selected on eleven validity criteria, and machine-learning regression applied to the same firm-demeaned data. The capitalisation coefficient is not identified. It moves from +0.177 under two-way fixed effects to between −0.12 and −0.28 under five instrument sets, all of which fail because profitability persists at 0.271, so any lagged financial ratio embeds past profit. The labour-share coefficient is stable across estimators, groups and functional forms, and the paper tests whether that stability is arithmetic, since return on assets and the labour share are consecutive lines of one statement. It is not: value added over total assets varies by a factor of 2.8 across the four operating archetypes recovered from the data, while the coefficient varies by 1.07. The accounting identity explains part of the magnitude and none of the stability. |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:zb9ck_v1 |
| By: | Ortega-McCormack, Hannah (Central Bank of Ireland); Carroll, James (Central Bank of Ireland); Gillespie, Tom (Central Bank of Ireland); Lyons, Ronan C. (Central Bank of Ireland) |
| Abstract: | The Energy Efficiency Premium (hereafter called the premium) - that is, the increase in property price associated with a single grade increase in the BER rating - was on average 1.6% between 2015 and 2024. The premium decreased from 1.9% in 2015 to 1.3% in 2024. In 2024, 59% of properties for sale in Daft had a BER ranging from B3 to D1. If a property were to improve its BER from a D1-rating to a B3-rating, the four BER-grade difference would amount to a premium of 5.2%. The change in the premium over time differs by market segment. The premium is highest for lower-priced properties. However, the premiums converged over the ten years, decreasing for lower-priced properties and rising for higher-priced properties, potentially driven by higher-income households having greater capacity to prioritise energy efficiency. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbi:stafin:11/si/26 |
| By: | Georges Daw (Université Paris-Saclay, Faculté Jean Monnet Droit, Économie, Management, , LED - Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, Laboratoire d’économie dionysien-LED, EA 3391, 2 rue de la Liberté - Saint-Denis 93200) |
| Abstract: | The consideration of this article is that it is pivotal for economic policy to have a framework that enables first to understand the determinants of growth and their respective weights, and then to examine prospectively the isolated (i.e., all other variables being equal) or aggregate impact of economic policy on potential growth. We have improved the precision of this framework by distinguishing between global, technological and human progress, by considering intermediate consumption (IC), and by dividing French economy into three productive sectors (including the ICT sector). We calibrated the model using a newly constructed dataset researchers may find useful. The results inform that, given its economic characteristics, France's potential growth is stagnant (0, 11 %) and essentially (around 2/3) intensive explained by global progress and ICT-sector specific advances. The extensive part is due to capital deepening. Assessing the impact on potential growth of a number of variables that are central to economic policy, we obtain that TFP, whose contribution to potential growth was nil over the period studied, has the highest growth multiplier coefficient (slightly over 1). Within the typology of progress, the one passing through IC has the highest impact on growth (coefficient of 0.2). |
| Abstract: | L'idée centrale de cet article est qu'il est essentiel, pour la conduite des politiques économiques, de disposer d'un cadre permettant, d'une part, d'identifier les déterminants de la croissance ainsi que leurs poids respectifs et, d'autre part, d'évaluer de manière prospective l'impact isolé (toutes choses égales par ailleurs) ou agrégé des politiques économiques sur la croissance potentielle. Nous améliorons la précision de ce cadre en distinguant le progrès global, le progrès technologique et le progrès humain, en prenant en compte les consommations intermédiaires (CI) et en décomposant l'économie française en trois secteurs productifs, dont le secteur des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC). Le modèle est calibré à l'aide d'une base de données originale, qui pourra s'avérer utile à d'autres chercheurs. Les résultats montrent que, compte tenu de ses caractéristiques économiques, la croissance potentielle de la France est quasi stagnante (0, 11 %) et s'explique essentiellement, à hauteur d'environ deux tiers, par le progrès global et les avancées propres au secteur des TIC. Sa composante extensive provient principalement de l'intensité capitalistique. L'évaluation de l'impact sur la croissance potentielle de plusieurs variables centrales pour la politique économique révèle que la PGF, dont la contribution à la croissance potentielle est nulle sur la période étudiée, présente le multiplicateur de croissance le plus élevé (légèrement supérieur à 1). Au sein de la typologie des formes de progrès retenues, le progrès transitant par les consommations intermédiaires exerce l'effet le plus important sur la croissance (coefficient de 0, 2). |
| Keywords: | Gross output, sectoral output, value added (VA) and intermediate consumption (IC), Prospective and policy objectives, Human and technical changes, General equilibrium model for French economy, Solow residual or Total Factor Productivity, Growth accounting |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05729490 |
| By: | Leogrande, Angelo; Di Molfetta, Mauro; Nortarnicola, Valeria; Trotta, Maria Giovanna; Plantamura, Antonio Volpe |
| Abstract: | Research on small-firm profitability has organised itself around capital structure, leaving the operating model largely unexamined. This paper places both in one specification and estimates it three times — by panel methods, unsupervised partitioning and machine-learning regression — on 14, 913 Italian firms observed between 2014 and 2025 across three regulatory regimes. Three findings emerge. The operating model dominates: the labour share of value added is stable across specifications, invariant across four clusters recovered from accounting data alone, and carries most of the out-of-sample predictive content. The capitalisation coefficient is not identified, changing sign across specifications; instrument failure traces to profit persistence. And the structure of profitability determination differs across the three populations, contradicting the common-mechanism premise underlying certification schemes. |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:mr86c_v1 |
| By: | Thomas R. Covert (Airbnb); Richard Sweeney (Boston College; Boston College) |
| Abstract: | We measure technical progress and cost declines in the wind turbine industry, accounting for large quality improvements that have occurred over time. As in many industrial settings, we do not observe costs. Instead, we infer them by modeling the turbine procurement process, and estimate the model on the near-universe of global commercial wind farms built from 2000 to 2019. We find that while commonly reported measures of price per unit of capacity fell by 30 percent during this time, latent quality-adjusted costs fell by over 75 percent. Underpinning these cost declines, we estimate substantial learning-by-doing. A doubling of manufacturing experience reduces manufacturing costs by 26 to 29 percent. Though inter-firm spillovers per unit are relatively small, in aggregate, they rationalize a significant portion of the cost reductions over time. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Renewable Energy, Learning |
| JEL: | O33 Q42 L11 |
| Date: | 2026–08–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:1115 |
| By: | Omar Licandro; Juan Ignacio Vizcaino |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how to measure welfare-relevant growth in economies undergoing structural transformation, where persistent changes in relative prices and expenditure patterns can lead to aggregation biases in standard output measures. We address this issue within a continuous-time dynamic general equilibrium model featuring non-homothetic preferences, sector-specific productivity trends, and investment-specific technical change. We compare two welfare-based measures of real income growth: a current-base equivalent variation measure and a chained Fisher–Shell index. The chained Fisher–Shell index coincides with the chained Divisia index, providing strong theoretical foundations for national accounting methodology and requiring the growth rates and nominal expenditure shares of major expenditure components as sufficient statistics for a welfare-based output index. In contrast, the current-base index is more informationally demanding, requires systematic revisions, and introduces base-dependent biases that distort the evaluation of past growth. Our quantitative analysis reveals that these biases are substantial, increase over time, and conflict with key stylized facts in the structural transformation literature. |
| Keywords: | chained quantity indices, divisia index, equivalent variation, Fisher-ideal index, Fisher-Shell index, GDP measurements, investment-specific technical change, non-homothetic preferences, structural transformation |
| JEL: | C43 E01 E13 O11 O14 O41 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1592 |
| By: | Joan Costa-i-Font; Juan David Garcia Corchero |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of the expansion of patient choice of health care provider on measures of process delivery and clinical outcomes central to the functioning of a health system, using a quasi-natural experiment in Spain over 2002–2019. We draw on a staggered adoption of provider choice reforms across Spanish regional health services and a heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences estimator applied to regionyear panel data alongside individual-level survey data. We estimate that the availability of provider choice reduced specialist waiting times by approximately 17 days (19% of the pre-reform mean) and the use of private specialist visits, without increasing public health spending. The waiting-time and private-utilisation results are robust to excluding the region where the 2009 reform bundled choice with new hospitals, public–private partnerships, and a budget increase. Although we cannot reject zero effects on some clinical outcomes, the evidence is consistent with the thesis that provider choice improves the “quality needle”, namely it improves observable process quality without affecting less-visible clinical dimensions. |
| Keywords: | provider choice, difference-in-differences, waiting times, health outcomes, Spain, public–private substitution |
| JEL: | I11 I18 D82 H75 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12966 |