| Abstract: | The most obvious reason for studying labour productivity is that it can reasonably be regarded as one of the dimensions of market performance: firms which exhibit a high rate of increase of labour productivity are, other things being equal, “better” than firms with a low rate of increase. Similarly, concentration, a dimension of market structure, can be regarded as having normative implications. Although the selection of these variables as being worthwhile ones for study clearly rests on their value as normative indicators, the scope of this paper is essentially positive in content. Its purposes are: first, to provide estimates of changes in labour productivity and of changes in concentration in the food processing industries in the decade 1954-63; second, to attempt to test various hypotheses concerning the causes of different rates of change of productivity (including the hypothesis that increasing concentration has helped to raise productivity); and in conclusion to consider some of the possible effects of productivity changes. |
