Efficiency and productivity analyses of Indonesian manufacturing industries

This study estimates the technical efficiencies and total factor productivity (TFP) growths in food, textile, chemical and metal products industries from 1993 to 2000 in Indonesia by using the stochastic frontier model. Furthermore, the determinants of inefficiency are also analyzed and TFP growth is decomposed into technological progress, a scale component, and efficiency growth. The results reveal that the food, textile, chemical and metal products sectors are on average 50.79%, 47.89%, 68.65% and 68.91% technically efficient, respectively. It is noted that ownership contributed to technical inefficiencies in the food sector; location and size contributed to technical inefficiencies in the textile sector, whereas size, ownership and age contributed to inefficiencies in the chemical and metal products sectors. We note that productivity in food, textile, and metal products sectors decreased at the rate of 2.73%, 0.26%, and 1.65%, respectively, but increased at a rate of 0.5% in the chemical sector. The decomposition of TFP growth indicates that the growths are driven positively by technical efficiency changes and negatively by technological progress in all four sectors.     

广东现代服务业全要素生产率研究

本文利用Malmquist指数法,对广东2000～2008年现代服务业全要素生产率进行了测算。结果显示,广东现代服务业的快速增长并非源于要素使用效率的提高,而是得益于要素投入的增长;但各经济区差异较大,珠三角和西翼经济区现代服务业TFP高于全省平均水平,且现代服务业加速增长的同时,增长方式向集约型方式转变;而东翼经济区和山区现代服务业TFP不升反降,经济增长仍然主要依靠要素投入的增长。     

Total factor productivity growth on Britain’s railways, 1852–1912: A reappraisal of the evidence

This paper revisits the issue of the productivity performance of Britain’s railways with an improved dataset and modern cliometrics. We find a slowdown in TFP growth between 1850 and 1870, after which it stabilized at about 1.1%. An analysis of company-level productivity performance reveals large discrepancies in TFP growth and substantial cost inefficiency. The evidence suggests that there was managerial failure in companies with agency problems in a context of collusion and high entry barriers. A wider implication is that the neoclassical exoneration of late-Victorian British management may be less convincing for the services sector than for manufacturing.     

Productivity and economic growth in East Asia: innovation, efficiency and accumulation

This paper uses a varying coefficients frontier production function model to examine the sources of growth between 1987 and 1993 in four East Asian economies—Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. Using data for 20 manufacturing sectors at the three-digit SIC level, this study provides the first comprehensive examination of sources of growth that allows one to decompose total factor productivity growth, separating out technical efficiency changes (TECs) from technological progress (TP). We find that while there is ample evidence of the importance of increasing inputs in growth, and there is some support for technical efficiency change, or catching up to the frontier over this period, there is weak or even negative evidence for the role of technological progress, measured as a shift in the estimated production frontier.     

Efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture: A regional meta-frontier analysis

This paper utilizes a unique county-level dataset to examine technical efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture. We classify the counties into four regions with distinctive levels of economic development, and hence production technologies. A meta-frontier analysis is used. We find that although the eastern counties have the highest efficiency scores with respect to the regional frontier but the northeastern region leads in terms of agricultural production technology nationwide. Meanwhile, the mean efficiency of the northeastern counties is particularly low, suggesting technology and knowledge diffusion within region might help to improve production efficiency and thus agricultural output.     

Efficiency and productivity growth in Chinese universities during the post-reform period

The social science research performance of Chinese universities is examined using panel data. The universities are found to be very inefficient in general, with not much difference between regions. By far the largest single cause of universities′ overall technical efficiency is pure technical efficiency, along with a considerable amount of scale inefficiency and a modest amount of congestion. No obvious regional differences in the universities′ productivity growth are apparent between 1998 and 2002. Decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index indicates that although there has been technological progress over the years, poor scale efficiency and technical efficiency have resulted in deterioration in the universities′ average productivity. There are signs of increasing congestion during the period studied.     

Farm technology and technical efficiency: Evidence from four regions in China

In this paper we fit stochastic frontier production functions to data of Chinese farms grouped into each of four regions—North, Northeast, East, and Southwest—over 1995–1999. These frontier production functions are shown to have statistically different structures, and the elasticities provide some evidence of diminished marginal products of chemical inputs in the East and capital services in the North and Southwest. Labor has a low elasticity except in the North. Standardized technical efficiency scores are estimated for the farms and are shown to have the same structure across regions and to be related to the age of the household head, land fragmentation, and the village migration ratio, controlling for year effects and village or regional fixed effects.     

R&;D,trade, and productivity growth in korean manufacturing

This paper investigates the effects of both R&D spillovers and trade patterns on productivity in Korean manufacturing, using industry-level data. The results show that domestic and foreign R&D capital stocks played an important R&D in improving the total factor productivity of Korean manufacturing. Moreover, productivity is higher in export industries and the more open industries, and the effects of foreign R&D capital are stronger in the industries with large import shares or large intra-industry trade shares. JEL no. F10, O32, O47.     

Productivity Growth in Different Plant‐size Groups in the Malaysian Manufacturing Sector*

In the present study, we develop a stochastic frontier production model that allows for different groups of firms to have different patterns of technical efficiency over time. We apply our model to the Malaysian manufacturing sector to decompose total factor productivity growth into technical efficiency change and technical progress for different plant size groups (e.g. large and small) in seven industries during 2000–2004. Our empirical results indicate that technical efficiency has worsened across all industries and plant‐size groups. In contrast, we find evidence of substantial technical progress in all industries. In fact, technical progress has been larger than technical efficiency deterioration in most industries and plant‐size groups, leading to total factor productivity growth. Our analysis identifies the industries and plant‐size groups that lag the most in terms of productivity, and thus have the greatest scope for policies that facilitate productivity growth.     

Human capital and economic growth in Spain, 1850–2000

We investigate human capital accumulation in Spain using income- and education-based alternative approaches. We, then, assess human capital impact on labor productivity growth and discuss the implications of its alternative measures for TFP growth. Trends in human capital are similar with either measure but the skill-premium approach fits better Spanish historical experience. As education is a high income elastic good, human capital growth computed with the education-based approach seems upward biased for the recent past. Human capital provided a positive albeit small contribution to labor productivity growth facilitating technological innovation.     

海南的资本投入与全要素生产率

本文从投资效率出发估计海南资本存量数据,并运用索洛余值法、隐含变量法和潜在产出法讨论了1978～2006年海南的全要素生产率变动。分析表明:海南全要素生产率增长与海南宏观经济波动趋势较一致,海南的经济增长主要依靠全要素生产率的贡献。     

Catching up to the European core: Portuguese economic growth, 1910–1990

This paper analyses the causes of Portuguese catching-up to the European core, in the 20th century, within a growth accounting framework. It concludes that investment in human and physical capital was the main driving force of economic growth and that variation in output growth rates are attributable to changes in total factor productivity growth. The paper explains the decline in TFP growth after 1973 in terms of structural change in the industrial sector.     

服务业全要素生产率测度及其省际差异

运用2005～2009年中国31省份服务业面板数据,采用非参数Malmquist指数方法,对中国服务业全要素生产率的变动原因、空间差异与变动趋势进行考察,并将全要素生产率进一步分解为技术效率和技术进步。研究结果表明,中国服务业整体仍表现为粗放型的增长方式,全要素生产率呈现负增长,但增长速度有所放缓;服务业发展水平的空间差异明显,东部地区服务业发展水平高于中西部地区,其中西部和东北地区服务业发展水平较落后,且技术进步和技术效率对中国及各区域服务业的全要素生产率在时间和空间上有不同的影响。     

Comparative output and labor productivity in manufacturing between China, Japan, Korea and the United States for ca. 1935 - A production-side PPP approach

Following the standard industry-of-origin methodology to measure production-side purchasing power parities (PPPs), this study for the first time provides a set of unit value ratios (UVRs) of manufacturing products between China, Japan, Korea and the US, based on which it derives PPP estimates for individual manufacturing industries for these East Asian countries with the US as the benchmark for ca. 1935. The estimated PPP for total manufacturing suggests that the relative level of the producer price in China, Japan and Korea was about half to two thirds of the prevailing market exchange rates, respectively. The estimated PPPs are used to calculate comparative output and labor productivity for individual industries of these countries for ca. 1935. It shows that the size of factory manufacturing in Japan was 12 percent of the US level and in China only about one percent of the US level. In terms of comparative labor productivity, measured as PPP$ per hour worked, Japanese and Korean manufacturing was 24 and 23 percent of the US level, whereas Chinese manufacturing was only 7 percent of the US level.     

Assessing the Competitiveness of International Financial Services in Particular Locations: A Survey of Methods and Perspectives

The International Financial Services (IFS) industry is restructuring internally and by location. This paper outlines the economic forces and analytical methods that may be applied to examine the economic drivers of these processes as ever more cities, particularly in East Asia, are vying to attract IFS providers and their clients. The ICT revolution has made those IFS that can be commoditized footloose in search of cost efficiency. High value-added financial services, however, will continue to be developed and coordinated in a few major IFS centers that have invested in, or capitalized on, regional or global advantages for themselves and their clients. The resulting pattern of functional fragmentation and geographic dispersal may facilitate analyses of the competitiveness of different lines of the financial services business in a particular location by methods such as Data Envelopment and Stochastic Frontier Analysis. These forms of comparative efficiency analysis have recently been questioned and their results reinterpreted.

环境约束下浙江省全要素生产率差异性及收敛性分析

文章通过Malmquist指数将环境因素纳入到全要素生产率的分析框架中,测算环境约束下浙江省2002年至2009年9个地区全要素生产率及其成分,并对其收敛性进行检验。结果显示,研究区间内浙江省生产率水平略有增长,但各地区增长类型和原因各不相同,并且随着时间的推移,浙江省各地区全要素生产率差距会扩大。     

Technical Efficiency of Rice Farms in Different Agroclimatic Zones in the Philippines: An Application of a Stochastic Metafrontier Model*

Rice producers in the Philippines operate in spatially diverse physical environments that are largely beyond their control. We decompose total factor productivity into technical efficiencies and environment–technology gap ratios across four climatic zones for selected years from 1996/1997 to 2005/2006 using farm‐level panel data. Results show surprisingly little interzonal and intertemporal variation in productivity. It appears that Philippine rice producers have been able to adapt their crop management strategies sufficiently to suit their particular agroclimatic conditions. However, after an increase in the first 5 years of the study period, mean environment–metatechnology gap ratios stagnated in the second 5 years. The metafrontier does not appear to have substantially shifted outwards over the whole period, suggesting that rice producers achieved little technological progress and increased total factor productivity.     

参与全球生产网络对我国传统产业劳动效率的影响——以华东地区纺织服装业为例

文章选取超越对数劳动要素成本函数的随机前沿模型,构建了2001-2012年华东地区纺织服装产业的省级面板数据,对传统产业中典型行业纺织服装业的劳动效率进行测度,同时构建网络位置指标考察参与全球生产网络深度对产业劳动效率的影响。研究发现,参与全球生产网络将改变传统产业劳动效率改善的惯性路径,华东地区纺织服装业的劳动效率呈"倒U型"提升路径,加入全球生产网络初期,产业劳动效率有下降过程,随着参与全球生产网络广度和深度的增加将推动产业在全球生产网络中网络位置的提升,进而促进区域产业劳动效率的提升。     

生产性服务业与制造业互动效率的区域比较研究--基于行业市场效率异质的视角

文章通过对区域内生产性服务业与制造业互动效率均衡分析,理论上界定与论证了生产要素在生产性服务业与制造业之间流动性配置的纠偏方向与均衡标准;运用中国工业企业数据库的企业层面数据,结合统计年鉴生产性服务业的同期宏观数据,分区域分行业实证研究发现：东西部区域普遍都存在制造业与生产性服务业整体规模不经济现象、互动效率较低、中部整体投资效率较高,存在较好的互动效果;东部机械制造业、轻工业、化工业、材料业四个行业的市场扭曲程都低于中西部区域;中部区域的机械制造业市场扭曲程度高于东部和西部,轻工业、化工业、材料业的市场扭曲程度都是居中;西部区域的轻工业、化工业、材料业三个行业的市场扭曲程度都是最高的,西部区域的机械制造业市场的扭曲程度高于东部但低于中部,最后分区域提出了对策建议。