The anatomy of productivity growth slowdown and recovery in Canadian manufacturing, 1970–79

A micro-database that tracks individual establishments (plants) in the Canadian manufacturing sector through the 1970s is used to analyse the productivity growth slowdown and partial recovery that occurred over that decade. The data allow us to distinguish between the performance within individual plants and ‘structural’ changes, such as entry and exit and intra- and inter-industry shifts in the distribution of output as contributing factors to changes in productivity growth. The main finding is that fluctuations within plants were responsible for nearly all of the slowdown, and for most of the partial recovery, though the latter was also helped by a reallocation of output shares within manufacturing towards lower cost industries.     

工业化新时期新兴主导产业的选择

需求约束的强化和加入WTO后的挑战，使我国的工业化进入了一个新的时期。为了寻找新的增长空间，提供更多的就业机会，加快产业结构升级，并进一步走可持续发展道路，工业化新时期需要选择新兴主导产业。从产业的增长潜力、就业功能、带动效应、生产率上升率、技术密集度、可持续发展性以及国际比较等方面来进行分析，制造业中兼顾产业升级基本目标和就业增长重要目标的新兴主导产业是：电子及通信设备、电气机械及器材、交通运输设备、纺织和服装、普通机械和专用设备制造业。应当通过新的产业政策，促进新兴主导产业的形成和发展，提高其国际竞争力，并加强其对整个制造业发展的带动效应。     

Trends in innovation and productivity: The case of chemical and textile industries in the U.S.

This paper attempts to investigate an empirical linkage between technological innovation and productivity in two industries in the United States. During the period 1967—82, the chemical and textile industries experienced different rates of productivity growth. In spite of stiff competition from foreign manufacturers, American textile firms maintained a steady growth in productivity. This industry benefitted from major technological innovations occurring in industries supplying to it. The chemical industry faced crisis due to sudden changes in petroleum prices. Changes in regulatory requirements also imposed a different set of constraints on the chemical industry. Rate of innovation decreased quite severely in this industry during this time period.
Innovation indicators were developed by obtaining data on new product/process announcements in the technical literature. Panels of technical experts from the industries and academia evaluated the data for their technical novelty. The data indicate a relationship between innovation and productivity growth.     

节能减排约束下中国制造业行业的效率和生产率的研究

本文运用SBM方向性距离函数和卢恩伯格生产率指标,对在资源和环境约束下我国26个制造业行业1999～2008年的效率和生产率及其构成进行了实证研究.结果表明:能源的过多使用以及SO2和COD的过度排放是环境无效率的主要来源;环境无效率水平最高的是原材料工业,环境效率水平最高的是机械设备制造业;环境全要素生产率的平均增长率低于市场全要素生产率的平均增长率,说明了环境管理的无效率;纯技术进步是中国制造业行业环境全要素生产率增长的主要推动力.     

东、中、西三大区域产业结构变动效益分析

合理的产业结构是区域经济健康发展的前提。它有利于充分利用区域资源。发挥区域优势,提高区域产业经济效益,增强区域经济实力。产业结构在整个经济结构中居于主导地位,它的变动对经济增长有着决定性的影响。定量化的研究产业结构变动对经济产生的效益是一项非常困难的工作,而用偏离——份额分析法可以大致分析出各产业变动对经济的贡献。因此。文章运用偏离——份额法对全国东部、中部和西部三大区域的产业结构进行效益分析。     

Income Inequality: An Inter-Industry Analysis

This paper offers new evidence that inter-industry inequality has increased since the early seventies. An examination of de industrialization, segmented labor market, and international competition explanations of this increase shows that the growth of inequality is accounted for mainly by growing wage differentials among industries, notably between primacy and secondary sectors. Employment shifts out of middle-wage industries and employment and wage effects of international trade do not explain the inequality increase.     

The Layering of Meso‐Level Institutional Effects on Employment Systems in Japan

Japan's corporate governance and employment relations systems have been under considerable pressures to reform towards a more Anglo‐American model, against a back‐drop of intensified global competition and slow economic growth over two ‘lost’ decades. But what is the relationship between these systems, and specifically, how does corporate governance structure condition employment relations practice? This paper adopts the ‘Systems, Society, Dominance and Corporate (SSDC) effects’ framework in order to contextualize and evaluate the outcomes of these pressures, particularly in the period following the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. It reports case study data from various parts of the Japanese economy drawn from a series of firm‐based interviews and a variety of secondary sources. It is argued that there has been a strong degree of continuity in certain employment practices, such as lifetime employment, even in relatively new high technology firms, but that the pattern for other practices, such as seniority‐based pay, is more mixed with increasing differentiation between industries and individual organizations. We articulate a layered assessment of the varying SSDC effects at play in corporate Japan. This differentiation across industries and organizations is a function both of strategic choice (corporate effects) and also the increasing variation in the meso‐level institutional pressures that are experienced at organizational level; that is, the differentiation in the sources and nature of dominance effects that are relevant.     

广东省建筑业产业结构和竞争力分析

运用偏离-份额分析模型,以2003～2007年为研究周期,对广东省建筑业的产业结构和竞争力进行分析探讨。结果表明,虽然广东省建筑业在这些年取得一定的进步,但总体发展不是很理想,产业发展速度低于全国平均水平,产业结构不甚合理,竞争力有待加强,表现在传统产业部门的房屋建筑工程分支尤甚。相对而言,建筑装饰分支和建筑安装分支具有较快的发展速度和较强的竞争力,但因其比重相对较小,对总体贡献有限。提出了提高广东省建筑业的发展和竞争力水平的若干建议。     

Unions and Employment Growth: The One Constant?

Sequential analyses of the major workplace data sets available to British researchers—the cross-sectional Workplace Industrial/Employee Relations Surveys (WIRS/WERS)—have revealed shifts in some previously well-established associations between union presence and firm performance, so much so in fact that it has become conventional to speak of a pronounced reduction in the "disadvantages of British unionism." One finding that seems to have persisted in cross section, however, is the negative effect of unions on employment growth. Following on a recent study in this Journal, we reexamine the issue using employment data from a panel of firms surveyed at two points in time rather than a single cross section. We report similar evidence of employment retardation in union regimes. On the other hand, the new data also suggest that some other unfavorable union effects may be longer-standing than previously reported.     

Flexible Wage Contracts,Temporary Jobs,and Firm Performance: Evidence From Italian Firms

This study focuses on the effects of decentralized wage schemes and temporary forms of employment on firm performance. The effect of monetary incentives on workers' effort and firm performance is a central topic in economics. According to the principal‐agent paradigm, firms (the principal) have to link employees' remuneration schemes to any verifiable indicator of performance to avoid opportunistic behavior. The empirical evidence shows that financial incentives have the potential to exert strong effects on indicators of firm performance, such as productivity and worker absenteeism, although the degree of effectiveness of such schemes varies significantly according to the institutional/economic context in which firms operate. From both a theoretical and empirical point of view, the prediction on the effects of temporary types of employment on effort and productivity is less neat. In light of these considerations, this study uses a sample of Italian firms to provide further empirical evidence on whether and to what extent performance‐related pay schemes and contract flexibility affect workers' effort (in terms of absenteeism) and, in turn, firm productivity. These effects are analyzed for different types of workers (white collar vs. blue collar), working in workplaces characterized by a different degree of uncertainty and risk and in firms operating in different economic and institutional settings. Our results show that wage flexibility has a significant effect on effort and then on firm's productivity and that white‐collar workers are more responsive to monetary incentives than blue‐collar workers. Moreover, the presence of a large share of temporary contracts, implying a lower dismissal probability for permanent workers and a deterioration of the working environment, appears to reduce workers' motivation and effort.     

我国产值结构变动对就业结构的影响

利用我国1990年～2009年的数据，分析了我国产值结构与就业结构的现状，通过比较三次产业间相对生产率、就业弹性的差异，探讨了产值结构变动对就业结构的影响，并通过国际比较分析了我国就业结构与产值结构之间的发展不平衡性。针对我国就业结构与产值结构在发展中存在的问题给出了相应的政策建议。     

Tax breaks for incentive pay,productivity and wages: Evidence from a reform in Italy

This paper analyses the impact of a tax break on incentive pay (introduced in Law n. 208/2015) on labour productivity and average wages in Italian firms. We use a unique source of firm-level information drawn from a large representative survey of Italian firms merged with the ORBIS archive. By applying difference-in-differences methods, we obtain the following results. First, the tax break has a positive effect on both labour productivity and average wages, although the positive effect on average wages is not confirmed by robustness tests. Second, productivity impacts are mainly driven by family firms in northern regions, where firms benefit from the more dynamic business environment in which they operate. These results take into account unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity issues.     

Methodology in the "Job Quality" Debate

This paper critically examines the use of the earnings distribution of net employment gains in the analysis of "new jobs." The paper explains why this measure of economic performance is not robust and why it can be misleading. Alternative analyses, based on industry and/or accupation, are more robust and may be more informative. Illustrative results show that the new job growth has been concentrated in industries with generally lower wages than the industries where jobs have been lost.     

The Effect of Unions on Productivity Growth, Investment and Employment: A Report on some Recent Work

Using two British microeconomic data sets, this paper reports the following. (1) Union firms experienced faster productivity growth during 1980–4, but there was no difference in performance in 1975–9, or 1985–6. So unions do not necessarily reduce productivity growth. It is also unlikely that the above pattern can be explained by changes in union legislation. (2) Unionism appears to have no significant effect on in vestment, once one allows for the effects of differential productivity growth. (3) Wages in union and non-union firms are equally responsive to changes in the capital–labour ratio. (4) Contrary to what is often alleged, unionism per se does not reduce employment growth. Instead, the negative correlation observed in 1980–4 probably arises from a significant reform of working practices in unionized firms during 1980–4.     

New perspectives on farm size and productivity

The farm size and productivity debate has been limited by the focus on land or labor productivity, generally showing respective productivity advantages to smaller or larger sized farms. Our purpose is to provide new perspectives on the debate by bringing together evidence from a set of novel case studies in both rich and poor countries. Common to them are the adoption of total factor productivity (TFP) as the comparative performance measure, and the reliance on panels of farm micro data. The present article presents a synthesis of findings from five case studies in (i) Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda; (ii) Bangladesh; (iii) Brazil; (iv) Australia; and (v) the United States. The preponderance of evidence from these studies suggests that there is no single economically optimal agrarian structure; rather, it appears to evolve with the stage of economic development. Certain farm sizes face relative productivity advantages, such as small farms in Africa. But with economic and market growth, that smallholder advantage will likely attenuate, moving toward constant and eventually increasing returns to size. Yet, importantly, small farms may be quite dynamic, and need not be a drag on agricultural growth until perhaps well into the development process.     

A DEA Approach to Understanding the Productivity Growth of Malaysia's Manufacturing Industries

This paper seeks to explain the productivity growth performance of Malaysia's manufacturing sector using a panel data of 28 industries from 1981–1996. Here, the data envelopment analysis technique is used to calculate and decompose the Malmquist index of total factor productivity (TFP) growth into technical change, change in technical efficiency and change in scale efficiency. This allows the identification of the sources of productivity growth which is crucial for policy formulation. It was found that the annual TFP growth of the Malaysian manufacturing sector was low at 0.8% and this was driven by small gains in both technical change and technical efficiency, with industries operating close to optimum scale.     

Changes in the Relative Economic Performance of Immigrants to Great Britain and the United States, 1980–2000

We compare the relative labour market performance of immigrants in the USA and in Britain over the period 1980–2000, when the stocks of immigrants were rising in both countries alongside differential shifts in demand and changes to labour market institutions. We find that the average relative employment prospects of immigrants are generally better in the USA than in Britain, particularly for non‐white immigrants, while the average relative wage prospects for immigrants are generally better in Britain, particularly for men. Over time, relative wage and employment prospects for immigrants to the USA appear to have deteriorated, particularly among women, in a way that is not as apparent in Britain.     

Union Presence and Labour Productivity in British Manufacturing Industry. A Reply to Nolan and Marginson

Evidence on the association between union presence and labour productivity in British manufacturing industry is surveyed. The weight of the evidence suggests that around 1980 highly unionized organizations had a lower level of labour productivity than corresponding less highly unionized organizations, but that during the first half of the 1980s unionized work-places, firms and industries had superior productivity growth to their less unionized counterparts. Various criticisms made by Nolan and Marginson of earlier studies on unions and productivity are evaluated.     

Immigration and Informal Labor

We develop state‐level proxies for informal employment using differences between measures of self‐reported employment and officially sanctioned employment. In construction and landscaping, industries associated with under‐the‐table labor, we develop proxies for informal work based on productivity per officially sanctioned worker. We relate each set of proxies for informal employment to changes in immigrant population and composition. We find some evidence that immigration is associated with informal employment generally and in the construction industry when prevailing wages are low. States with high concentrations of low‐skilled male immigrants have higher levels of informal employment in the landscaping industry.     

Economic growth,telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector: Evidence around the world

This paper studies the relationships between economic growth, telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector in different countries and regions of the world. In particular, this study assesses the impact of mobile telecommunications on economic growth and telecommunications productivity. The results indicate that there is a bidirectional relationship between real gross domestic product (GDP) and telecommunications development (as measured by teledensity) for European and high-income countries. However, when the impact of mobile telecommunications development on economic growth is measured separately, the bi-directional relationship is no longer restricted to European and high-income countries. This study also finds that countries in the upper-middle income group have achieved a higher average total factor productivity (TFP) growth than other countries. Countries with competition and privatization in telecommunications have achieved a higher TFP growth than those without competition and privatization. The diffusion of mobile telecommunications services is found to be a significant factor that has improved the TFP growth of the telecommunications sector in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).