Productivity Growth, Participation and Communication

The issue of communication between workers and firms has become important in recent political and economic policy debates. The most obvious example of this is the debate over whether the UK should adopt the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty, which would make it mandatory for many firms to consult and communicate with their workforce. Another example is the debate over whether workers should be regarded as 'stakeholders'. In this paper we use establishment level data from the 1990 WERS survey to show that communication is associated with higher productivity growth. However, the strongest effects come from informal contact rather than through more formal bodies such as works councils. We argue that our results are consistent with a causal relationship where communication leads to higher productivity growth and further argue that the evidence is against the alternative interpretation of reverse causation. Our results have interesting policy implications: initiatives that increase communication can increase productivity growth, but will only be effective if they increase the amount of informal communication.     

企业更替和生产率增长的效应——基于我国部分竞争性行业的实证研究

21世纪以来,我国部分竞争性行业的企业更替和生产率增长促进了国民经济的健康发展,而行业内部的竞争实际是不同生产率的企业竞争,竞争过程中生产率较低的企业退出,生产率增长较快企业取代生产率增长较慢企业的市场份额,企业更替的过程不断重复,使得行业生产率保持不断增长的趋势.我们用近年来相关行业的数据研究表明,企业更替不仅通过选择效应,而且通过激励效应促进了行业生产率的增长.然而,随着进入潮的逐渐消退,选择效应的作用有所降低;但企业更替主要通过选择效应中的动态转移效应和激励效应推动行业生产率不断增长.     

环境约束下的制造业生产率增长分析

本文引入Malmquist-Luenberger生产率指数,对比分析环境约束和无约束情形下的2001-2008年中国制造业28个细分行业生产率增长状况。进一步的,本文分别将行业全要素生产率指数、技术进步指数及技术效率指数作为生产率增长指标,选取资本深化、行业规模、科技投入、环境污染和行业属性作为解释变量,利用面板数据回归模型分析环境约束下生产率增长影响因素。研究发现,忽略环境约束会低估制造业技术效率水平及其指数,但会高估技术进步指数和全要素生产率指数;分析结果表明影响因素对生产率增长均有显著影响。     

Growth Model with Financial Deepening and Productivity Heterogeneity

This paper studies the effects of financial deepening on growth dynamics and productivity in an economy where heterogeneous entrepreneurs face endogenous borrowing constraints. Quantitative results from a calibrated model suggest that 38% of Japan's total factor productivity from 1961 to 1991 can be explained by the financial deepening effects and the convergence speed is 29% slower than that implied by neoclassical models. The present paper also theoretically shows that an economy with a higher degree of productivity heterogeneity is more likely to avoid the poverty trap and converge with a slower speed to its steady state.     

从全要素生产率增长看经济增长方式的变化

中国全要素生产率增长的变化主要经历了三个阶段.20世纪80年代的波动增长期,90年代的稳定发展期和2000年以后的下降恢复期.就各要素对经济增长的贡献来说,资本投入的贡献是推动中国经济增长的主要动力,平均占到46.90%;劳动投入的贡献较为稳定,但水平相对较低,只有17.36%;全要素生产率的贡献平均维持在35.75%的水平.因此,从整体来看,中国经济增长的方式仍然没有摆脱效率较低的粗放型增长,但其趋势是向着集约型增长发展.     

The Real Yen Exchange Rate and Japanese Productivity Growth

This study investigates the time-series properties of five real yen exchange rates by testing for stationarity in the context of a single structural shift. It finds that all but one of the series are stationary in conjunction with a trend- or mean-break in the late 1950s or early 1970s. By comparison, most real rates for five other industrialized countries are stationary around a constant mean. These findings suggest that the behavior of the real yen exchange rate is unique among the six currencies in the sample, a difference that may originate in the exceptional productivity performance of the Japanese traded-goods sector.     

Information Technology and Productivity Growth in the 2000s

Abstract. US productivity growth experienced continued productivity growth after 2000 even as investment, particularly in information technology (IT), slowed. This paper uses industry-level data to examine the link between average labor productivity (ALP) growth and IT in the post-2000 period. We use difference-in-difference and cross-sectional regressions to show that the link between ALP growth and IT-intensity is weaker after 2000 than before. These results are robust to alternative measures of IT-intensity such as the IT share of capital services, the level of IT capital depth, and the share of IT capital services in total output. We conclude that the post-2000 productivity gains in the United States do not appear to have been driven directly by IT.     

Agricultural Productivity Growth and Escape from the Malthusian Trap

Industrialization allowed the industrialized world of today to escape from the Malthusian regime characterized by low economic and population growth and to enter the post-Malthusian regime of high economic and population growth. To explain the transition between these regimes, we construct a growth model with two consumption goods (an agricultural and a manufacturing good), endogenous fertility, and endogenous technological progress in the manufacturing sector. We show that with an exogenous increase in the growth of agricultural productivity our model is able to replicate stylized facts of the British industrial revolution. The paper concludes by illustrating that our proposed model framework can be extended to include the demographic transition, i.e., a regime in which economic growth is associated with falling fertility.     

Computer Price Indices and International Growth and Productivity Comparisons

Methodologies to derive price indices for information and communication technology (ICT) products vary between national statistical offices. This may lead to significant differences in measured price changes for these products and there has been concern about the international comparability of volume growth rates of GDP between several OECD countries. This article discusses the possible consequences for measures of economic growth of replacing one set of price indices by another one in the framework of national accounts. It is argued that the issue of ICT deflators cannot be dealt with in isolation and several other factors have to be taken into account, in particular whether ICT products are final or intermediate products, whether they are imported or domestically produced and whether national accounts are set up with fixed or chain weighted index numbers. Overall, results point to modest effects at the aggregate GDP level but may be more significant when it comes to component measures such as volume growth of investment, or of output in a particular industry.     

全要素生产率提升与中国经济增长新动能成长

从供给侧维度看,新旧动能转换分为要素层、科技层、产业层、制度层"四维结构"。当下中国新旧动能转换的主要表现为:需求动能仍乏力;劳动力、资本要素供给约束凸显;产业结构优化动能亟待释放,全要素生产率增长具有潜力;市场化及制度供给改革需要深入。在供给侧结构性改革导向下,推进中国新动能加速成长,应通过创新驱动,深化改革开放,加速形成有利于新旧动能转换的全要素生产率提高、需求升级、产业结构优化及质量优先的现代经济体系。     

R&;D: A Small Contribution to Productivity Growth

In this article I evaluate the contribution of R&D investments to productivity growth. The basis for the analysis are the free entry condition and the fact that most R&D innovations are embodied. Free entry yields a relationship between the resources devoted to R&D and the growth rate of technology. Since innovators are small, this relationship is not directly affected by the size of R&D externalities, or the presence of aggregate diminishing returns in R&D after controlling for the growth rate of output and the interest rate. The embodiment of R&D-driven innovations bounds the size of the production externalities. The resulting contribution of R&D to productivity growth in the US is smaller than 3–5 tenths of 1% point. This constitutes an upper bound for the case where innovators internalize the consequences of their R&D investments on the cost of conducting future innovations. From a normative perspective, this analysis implies that, if the innovation technology takes the form assumed in the literature, the actual US R&D intensity may be the socially optimal.     

Of Yeast and Mushrooms: Patterns of Industry-Level Productivity Growth

Abstract. In this paper we analyse labour productivity growth in the United States, four European countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands and United Kingdom), Australia and Canada between 1987 and 2003 from an industry perspective. Rather than analysing broad industry groups, we compare the pattern of growth in all industries through Harberger diagrams. We introduce new summary measures, which indicate the pervasiveness of growth patterns. These indicators show that investment in both information and communication technology (ICT) and non-ICT capital is fairly balanced or 'yeasty', driven by overall macro-economic conditions. However, growth of total factor productivity (TFP) is much more localized or 'mushroom-like'. In particular we find a clear distinction between countries in continental Europe, in which TFP is decelerating after 1995 and becoming more localized, and Anglo-Saxon countries in which TFP growth is accelerating and becoming more broad-based, especially after 2000. The increased breadth of Anglo-Saxon TFP growth is consistent with delayed effects of intangible investments that are complementary to ICT investments.     

Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing

The impact of trade liberalization on productivity growth is still an empirical issue; the theoretical literature is as yet unclear on the direction of any such association. This paper develops an analytical framework and employs it to empirically test whether trade liberalization in Indian manufacturing has raised total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The answer is in the affirmative. The results also support a key postulate of the new growth theories, that liberalization of the intermediate-good sectors has a larger favorable impact on TFP growth than that of the final-good sectors.     

农业劳动生产率增长分布演进的影响因素分析

深入分析农业劳动生产率增长分布演进的影响因素,对于促进农民农业收入的持续增长有着重要意义。本文利用2006-2010年浙江农户微观面板数据,基于随机前沿模型,将农业劳动生产率增长分解为5个因素的变化,采用反事实分析法,比较分析农业劳动生产率虚拟分布与真实分布的差异,进而判断各因素对农业劳动生产率增长分布演进的影响。结果表明：劳均农业物质费用投入和技术效率是农业劳动生产率增长分布位置与形态演进的主要原因,前沿技术则主要影响农业劳动生产率增长分布形态的演进,而劳均土地面积和农业劳动力数量对农业劳动生产率增长分布演进的作用较小。     

绿色生产率增长的非参数测度方法:演化和进展

系统梳理了绿色全要素生产率增长测度方法的演化进程和特征。考虑到基于DEA的非参数方法在多投入、多产出和多目标绩效评价中的应用优势,重点对基于DEA的非参数前沿分析方法在绿色全要素生产率增长测算中的应用研究进行了总结分析,对绿色全要素生产率增长的非参数测度方法的最新进展及存在的问题进行了评述,指出其未来发展方向及对中国绿色经济转型绩效评估的启示。