Productivity,technical efficiency and technological change in French agriculture during 2002-2015: a Färe-Primont index decomposition using group frontiers and meta-frontier

The objective of the article is to assess productivity change in French agriculture during 2002–2015; namely, total factor productivity (TFP) change and its components – technological change and efficiency change. For this, we use the Färe-Primont index which verifies the multiplicatively completeness property and is also transitive, allowing for multi-temporal and -lateral comparisons. We investigate the extent of heterogeneity within each type of farming sub-sample in terms of TFP change, with the help of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). In addition, to compare the technologies among the five types of farming considered, we extend our analysis to the meta-frontier framework. Results indicate that during 2002–2015, all farms experienced TFP progress. The smallest average increase was experienced by the dairy farms and the largest by the field crop farms and the beef farms. The latter had the strongest technological progress but a deterioration in efficiency, while the opposite was found for field crop farms. The analysis of HHI reveals that sheep or goat farms are the most homogenous in terms of the direction of TFP change experienced over the period 2002–2015. The meta-frontier analysis shows that field crop farms’ technology is the most productive of all the types of farming.     

ASSESSING THE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN THE US AND UK: A STOCHASTIC DISTANCE FUNCTION APPROACH

University technology transfer offices (henceforth, TTOs) play a critical role in the diffusion of innovation and the development of new technology infrastructure. Studies of the relative efficiency of TTOs have been based on licensing output measures and data from a single country. In contrast, we present the first cross-country comparison of the relative performance of TTOs, based on stochastic multiple output distance functions. The additional dimension of output considered is the university's propensity to generate start-up companies, based on technologies developed at these institutions. We find that US universities are more efficient than UK universities and that the production process is characterized by either decreasing or constant returns to scale. Universities with a medical school and an incubator are closer to the frontier.     

Using AHP,DEA and MPI for governmental research institution performance evaluation

Under situations of limited resources, soft powers such as technology development and innovation become critical capabilities for a nation’s continuous growth and sustainability. Therefore, we used analytical hierarchy process (AHP), data envelopment analysis (DEA), and Malmquist productivity index (MPI) to evaluate the performance of research projects in 6 main fields of study managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in Taiwan from 2002 to 2012. Among the 6 fields of study, Agriculture and Humanities were two research fields as efficiency; and the sequence of inefficiency 4 fields were sociology, medicine, science, and engineering. Although the field of sociology was inefficiency, it was the only field show continuous growth in result of MPI analysis. Taking the fields as a whole, the result of the analysis of total factor productivity showed recession. However, as seen from the growth in technical change and in scale efficiency change, the MOST was effective to a certain extent during the period. However, the recession in technical efficiency change showed that further improvement in the planning and distribution of manpower and funds is needed.     

Efficiency change,technological change and capital accumulation in Italian regions: a sectoral study

This paper examines the sources of labour productivity in the Italian regions during the period 1980–2004. Five economic sectors are investigated using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and taking into account productive specialisation and sector inefficiencies. Labour productivity change is decomposed into five components by means of Malmquist productivity indices: intra-sector efficiency change, composition efficiency change, input-biased technical change, magnitude component technical change and capital accumulation. Using bootstrap procedure, the components of labour productivity changes are statistically tested. Efficiency analysis shows that productive specialisation is not a source of inefficiency and efficiency gains can be obtained by sector-specific policies. Thus, it is possible to obtain improvements in efficiency in each sector of activity rather than reallocating resources among sectors. The results of the decomposition by sectors reveal heterogeneous sources of growth. The total economy has shown evidence of non-neutral technical change and, it has been found that agriculture, industry and construction experienced capital using technical change. The analysis of the decomposition of the labour productivity growth is complemented by an analysis of β-convergence.     

The impact of military technology transfer on economic growth: international evidence

The purpose of this article is to measure the impact of military technology transfer on economic growth for 67 selected countries during the period 2000 to 2005 through the application of the Malmquist productivity index, which is broken down into efficiency change and technical change. Our main findings are as follows. First, technology diffusion is all-pervading in half of the sampled countries due to pure efficiency and scale efficiency changes. Second, a higher-income level and an excess of arms imports lead to innovative activities. Third, middle-income countries have higher efficiency and pure efficiency changes; these contribute to higher total productivity change. Finally, after separating the impact of capital investment from that of arms imports, the diffusion of military technology has a more positive and substantial impact on economic growth, thereby revealing the presence of externalities between countries.     

技术进步对中国就业影响的实证研究

选取1978—2008年中国30个省市的面板数据,运用DEA方法测算中国的全要素生产率及其分解项:技术变化与技术效率,并使用ARDL模型实证分析技术效率和技术变化对就业的影响。研究发现:技术效率无论是长期还是短期都对就业具有显著的抑制效应,但在短期中,技术变化当期对就业没有显著影响;而滞后期技术变化的改善也会对就业人数的增加产生抑制效应,同时,在长期中,技术变化对就业有着显著的促进效应,可以带动就业量的增加。     

Productivity Growth and its Components in Chinese Agriculture after Reforms

This study uses nonparametric Malmquist procedures to investigate the temporal and spatial nature of productivity growth and its components in Chinese agriculture over the period 1980–1995. The results of this study indicate that total factor productivity grew at 2.4% annually with technical change augmenting the growth by 3.8% while efficiency change reduced productivity growth by 1.3%. For all provinces, 288 out of a total of 442 cases experienced productivity growth while the rest showed productivity regression during this post-reform period. Coexistence of improvement in technical change and retardation in efficiency change indicates the lack of success in diffusing the existing agricultural technology. Continuing innovation and efficiency improvement through capital investment, modern input use, and greater competitive market pressures are important for augmenting productivity growth in Chinese agriculture.     

中国农业全要素生产率的变动趋势及区域差异——基于1978～2008年曼奎斯特指数分析

使用1978～2008年省域面板数据,运用非参数曼奎斯特(Malmquist)生产率指数模型测算了中国农业全要素生产率的变动指数,并分析了全要素生产率(TFP)的时空差异。结果表明:全国、三大地区及绝大多数省份农业TFP的增长主要属于技术进步型的增长;全国及三大地区农业TFP增长呈现出明显的波动特征;农业TFP增长呈现出显著的区域间和区域内省际间的不平衡;农业技术效率的下滑制约全国及三大地区农业TFP的增长,而农业技术效率下滑是纯技术效率损失和规模效率下降共同作用的结果。     

Productivity growth and biased technical change in French higher education

This paper analyses the nature of technical change in the French labour market. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is adopted to investigate productivity change in a sample of higher education leavers over the period 1999 and 2004. In a first step, the Luenberger Productivity Indicator (LPI) is used to estimate and to decompose productivity change. Following LPI, a better productivity is found for the workers in Paris and the well-qualified occupations in France. In analysing the nature of the technical change by the concept of parallel neutrality, technical progress seems to have influenced all professions. In particular, biased inputs of human capital component benefit more for the well qualified professions with an upper increase of the efficiency scores for executives and teachers. Furthermore, some evidences show the key role of “learning by doing” in the worker's adaptation to technical change. Policy implications are then derived from our results.     

Labor productivity and technology heterogeneity

This paper investigates the role of technology club heterogeneity in economic growth and convergence. To do so, we break up labor productivity change into three factors – efficiency, technological, and capital–labor ratio changes – while distinguishing the impact of technology club heterogeneity respectively. This allows us to observe what is happening within and between clubs; as well as between the world and club technologies. Our labor productivity decomposition is nonparametric in nature and thus overcomes the issue of specifying functional forms for the club technologies. Our results reveal the existence of technology heterogeneity and divergence: the world technology is defined by advanced and rich countries; there exists intra-convergence phenomena (mostly due to capital–labor ratio change), but inter-convergences (owning to capital–labor ratio and technological changes) are not found. Finally, we argue that follower and marginalized countries have adopted imitating strategies, but with respect to different dimensions, namely technological change or capital–labor ratio.     

Productivity in the tourism industry

This paper analyzes the efficiency of a Portuguese public-owned hotel chain, Enatur. It applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to estimate total factor productivity (TFP) change, while breaking it down into technical efficiency and technological change. The benchmarking procedure used is an internal one, which compares hotels with each other. For the period 1999–2001, the hotels are ranked according to their total productivity change. It is concluded that some hotels experienced productivity growth, while others faced a decline. Some implications beneficial for managerial policies were drawn from this study.     

Using Malmquist index to select the strategic partners in vertical integration: the case of Taiwan LED supply chain

In recent years, green technology efficiency has been one of the most interesting issues when referring to energy saving. The light-emitting diode (LED) is one of the competitive industries on green technology in Taiwan. The objective of this article is to select the vertical strategic partners of the 22 LED companies through investigating performance of integration. The Malmquist productivity index (MPI) is used to evaluate the average efficiency change from 2011 to 2015. The empirical results show that the productivity change was influenced by both catch-up effects and frontier effects. For upstream companies, the MPI of Tekcore is superior to others because it maintained technical efficiency and technological change. For downstream companies, most of them are performed well in technical efficiency than technological change. This article helps LED manufacturers select the appropriate strategic partners to achieve competitive advantage.     

Sources of energy productivity growth and its distribution dynamics in China

The purposes of this paper are to determine the sources of energy productivity growth at the provincial level in China and to examine the relative contributions of the sources and their impacts on regional inequality. Energy productivity change is first decomposed into five components attributable to changes in capital–energy ratio, labor–energy ratio, output structure, and technical efficiency change and technological change. Then a nonparametric analysis is implemented to statistically test the relative contributions of the components and their roles in the distribution dynamics of energy productivity. It is found that (1) changes in capital–energy ratio, output structure, and technological change contribute to energy productivity growth in China, (2) increase in capital–energy ratio caused by capital accumulation is the primary driving force for energy productivity growth, and (3) capital accumulation contributes to energy productivity convergence between Chinese provinces over the time period of 1990–2005.     

Productivity and environmental regulation: the effect of the nitrates directive in the French pig sector

This paper measures the ensuing changes in productivity in the French pig sector following the introduction of the European regulation addressing water pollution by nitrates from agriculture. Productivity is measured using the Malmquist–Luenberger index. The sources of changes in productivity observed are examined by breaking down this index into its technical progress and efficiency components. The results show that in the early stages, increases in productivity were stimulated by increased efficiency, before being driven by technical progress. The estimations regarding the sources of efficiency gains for the farms in the sample (technical efficiency, efficiency of scale and environmental efficiency) are then used to estimate the indirect costs and benefits (or negative costs) linked to the introduction of the environmental regulation controlling the disposal of organic manure and the management of nitrogen surplus from pig farms. The existence of a “win-win” effect as regards the Porter hypothesis relation between efficiency and environmental regulation is highlighted for the French pig sector.      

总需求、国际贸易与我国省际生产率变化——基于省际面板数据的研究

全要素生产率的提高是促进经济持续增长的重要原因,对生产率的研究,主要是从供给方面展开的,本文试图从需求角度研究全要素生产率变动的原因。理论上看,总需求通过影响技术创新、技术选择、规模经济效益和要素的使用效率等途径引起生产率的变化,国际贸易则通过促进分工深化、产生技术溢出等促进生产率的提高。然后,本文采用数据包络分析方法测算了中国省际全要素生产率变化,并将其分解为技术效率的变化和技术进步。结果发现中国改革开放以来全要素生产率增长主要是技术进步的结果,技术效率的作用很小。在测算和分解的基础上,利用省际面板数据,就总需求和国际贸易对生产率增长的影响作了实证分析,发现最终消费和资本形成对技术进步和全要素生产率的提高作用显著,出口对生产率增长的作用不显著,进口显著地促进了省际全要素生产率增长和技术进步。     

Efficiency in the factoring industry

The efficiency and productivity in the Italian factoring industry between 1993 and 1997 is investigated using DEA. The factoring industry is an important part of many financial systems and it has established itself as a major source of finance and credit management for a growing number of companies. However, as far as the authors are aware no studies have applied frontier methodologies to examine the efficiency and productivity of this industry. This paper focuses on the Italian market, the second largest in the world after the UK. The results suggest that there are substantial cost savings to be had in the Italian factoring industry: the mean cost inefficiency in the Italian factoring industry over the period 1993–1997 ranged between 14% and 22%. These inefficiencies are mainly generated by allocative rather than technical inefficiencies. Scale and technical inefficiencies seem to be similar in magnitude and the supposed importance of the latter typically found in the banking efficiency literature, are not observed in Italian factoring. Firm size does not appear to be related to technical, allocative and economic efficiency and the hypothesis that ownership structure influences factoring firm efficiency could not be rejected. In order to analyse efficiency change over time the Malmquist index is used. Total factor productivity was decomposed into technical change and efficiency change and the latter was further divided into pure efficiency and scale efficiency change. Productivity changes were slight over the period 1993–1996, while a substantial increase in productivity occurred between 1996 and 1997: the latter appears to be the result of a large improvement in the technology and a positive scale efficiency change, however, this was slowed down by a negative pure efficiency change.     

Sulphur emissions and productivity growth in industrialised countries

Abstract ** :  In this paper, we examine the relationship between economic and environmental performance. More specifically, we analyse the impact of SO2 reduction in the eighties (1980–1992) on productivity growth, technical efficiency and technological progress for a set of 12 OECD countries. Our timeframe roughly corresponds to the adoption and implementation of the First Sulphur Protocol signed in 1985. First, we estimate an output based Malmquist productivity index using distance functions derived from successive DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) frontiers. This index is decomposed in two components namely technical and efficiency change. Second, we regress the change in productivity and its two components on a set of explanatory variables including annual variations in SO2 emissions. The results indicate that reductions in SO2 do not seem to have had a significant impact on productivity growth. The decomposition into efficiency and technology changes suggests that two countervailing effects may explain this result. On one hand, SO2 cutbacks adversely affect efficiency but on the other hand, they stimulate technical change .     

Productivity Trends in Australian and New Zealand Manufacturing

The purpose of this article is to study relative trends in total factor productivity (TFP) between the Australian and New Zealand manufacturing sectors from 1986 to 1996. Since 1984 both economies have undergone major structural changes with varying degrees of speed and intensity. We use the Malmquist index to measure TFP growth and decompose it into an efficiency change and a technical change component. This decomposition provides extra insight on assessing relative productivity trends during a period of economic reform. The results indicate the Australian manufacturing sector exhibits better rates of individual factor productivity performance while multifactor productivity is estimated to be higher in New Zealand manufacturing. TFP growth in New Zealand is driven by technical rather than efficiency change. In fact, the New Zealand manufacturing average rate of efficiency change is estimated to be negative over the sample period.     

技术吸收能力对技术溢出和全要素生产率的影响——基于1995—2009年中国省区面板数据

利用1995—2009年我国28个省(自治区、直辖市)的面板数据,采用数据包络分析法,实证检验了地区的技术吸收能力对地区获得的技术溢出及其全要素生产率的影响。研究表明:省际技术溢出以及来自进出口贸易、FDI和ODI渠道的技术溢出都是影响地区TFP及其分解变量——技术进步、技术效率的重要因素;人力资本、制度因素、技术差距和吸收能力综合变量通过与技术溢出发生交互作用,对地区TFP、技术效率和技术进步产生显著影响。     

The Malmquist Productivity Index and Plant Capacity Utilization

A new decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index is proposed to account for changes in plant capacity utilization. Using a primal, non-parametric specification of technology, the Malmquist index is decomposed into technical efficiency change, variations in plant capacity utilization and frontier shifts. It provides an alternative to the available methods of incorporating capacity utilization changes into measures of productivity change. Such measures are based on parametric (and, in many cases, dual) technology specifications; moreover, they typically do not allow for technical inefficiency.
JEL Classification C 61; D 24