Some Remarks on Productivity and its Decompositions

This paper provides a brief history of the Malmquist productivity index and its decomposition. Theoretical and empirical issues related to the index are discussed along with directions for future research.     

Innovation and productivity: insights from Malaysia's logistics industry

Efficient logistics is critical to a country's trade competitiveness. This paper uses the Data Envelopment Analysis Malmquist Index that includes an innovation component comprising three dimensions (input, process, and output), to assess the impact of innovation by third-party logistics (3PL). We treat the panel data of asset-based 3PL in Malaysia from 2007 to 2012. Three findings hold. First, innovation is not always accompanied by productivity gains. Second, innovation is still lacking in the logistics industry in Malaysia. Third, 3PL need to invest more in technology and stay financially healthy to accelerate the diffusion of innovation under a more competitive cost structure. This paper has two contributions. First, we offer an enhanced methodology for total factor productivity by including an innovation component and apply it for the first time to the logistics industry. Second, we augment the performance measurement literature specific to the logistics industry and our research suggests that the antecedents of productivity in logistics companies are investment and financial strength. These productivity–innovation findings provide insights into Malaysia's logistics industry and may be helpful for economies similar to Malaysia.     

A primal-dual approach to nonparametric productivity analysis: The case of U.S. agriculture

Nonparametric methods for measuring productivity indexes based on bounds for the underlying production technology are presented. Following Banker and Maindiratta, the lower bound is obtained from a primal approach while the upper bound corresponds to a dual approach to nonparametric production analysis. These nonparametric bounds are then used to estimate input-based and output-based distance functions. These radial measures provide the basis for measuring productivity indexes. Application to times series data on U.S. agriculture indicates a large gap between the primal lower bound and the dual upper bound. This generates striking differences between the primal and dual nonparametric productivity indexes.Respectively, professor and associate professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Seniority of authorship is equally shared. We would like to thank Rolf Färe and an anonymous reviewer for useful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. This research was supported in part by a Hatch grant from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

Combining DEA Window Analysis with the Malmquist Index Approach in a Study of the Canadian Banking Industry

The banking industry in Canada is essentially an oligopoly with five large participants controlling about 90% of the market. To evaluate the industry's performance over time, we need to deal with the problem of a small number of DMU's compared to the number of relevant inputs and outputs. To overcome this problem we use data envelopment analysis (DEA) window analysis, whereby efficiency scores for the 20 year period 1981–2000 are obtained. To measure productivity changes over time, Malmquist indices can be calculated from DEA scores. Using DEA window analysis scores, however, raise the question of how to define the same period frontier in a DEA window analysis. We show that for both the adjacent and the base period Malmquist index and for all suggested definitions of same period frontier, the standard decomposition into frontier shift and catching up effects gives inappropriate results when Malmquist indices are based on DEA window analysis scores.     

Sequential Malmquist Indices of Productivity Growth: An Application to OECD Industrial Activities

The paper applies both the standard DEA methodology with contemporaneous frontiers and DEA with sequential frontiers to study changes in productivity and efficiency in manufacturing for a sample of eleven OECD countries over a twenty-year period. It uses a decomposition of the industrial Malmquist productivity indices to locate the sources of productivity growth: 'technical progress' and 'catching up.' The alternative indices are interrelated in a unifying framework that provides an interpretation to their difference. We argue that for manufacturing industries, in which technological regress is unlikely to occur, DEA with sequential frontiers provides a more adequate measure for the contribution of technical changes than standard DEA.     

长江经济带物流业的全要素生产率差异性分析

将碳排放引入到全要素生产率指标体系,基于DEA-Malmquist方法对长江经济带11省市2007~2016年的全要素生产率测算,并从时间、空间两个维度对全要素生产率的演化进行分析。研究表明:长江经济带全要素生产率处于逐步上升的趋势,主要依靠技术进步拉动全要素生产率的提高;长江经济带11个省市全要素生产率总体呈上升趋势,但是存在地区发展不均衡,技术进步和规模效率是影响全要素生产率提高的主要因素。     

Evaluating the comparative performance of countries of the Middle East and North Africa: A DEA application

Over the past few decades, countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have achieved varying levels of economic development. In this paper, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is employed to study the comparative performance of selected MENA countries. For 1999, our DEA identified four of the 18 countries studied as the most efficient: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. All are from the Middle East, with three being members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Yemen was rated as the least efficient of all countries considered in the analysis. A regression analysis showed that the efficiency scores have a significant relationship with the richness of the countries (in terms of GNP per capita) but do not have a significant relationship with the size of the countries (in terms of population). Further, a time-series analysis using the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) indicated that the MENA countries achieved higher values of desirable attributes, and lower values of undesirable attributes, in 1999 compared to 1998. During 1998-1999, technology change contributed more to the improvement of MPI than did technical efficiency change.     

Testing for Intermediate Outputs in Dynamic DEA Models: Accounting for Soil Capital in Rotational Crop Production and Productivity Measures

Inagricultural production, a stylized fact known as the rotationeffect says crop rotations generate higher yields or productivitythan identical crops grown in isolated monocultures. This paperdevelops a dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model of cropproduction that accounts for the rotation effect. The model isapplied to data from an experimental farm in Pennsylvania toinvestigate the role soil capital plays in observed productivitygrowth and the rotation effect.     

生产性服务业生产率与经济增长关系分析

生产性服务业作为现代服务业的核心,集中体现了对经济的促进作用。生产性服务业通过提高经济增长效率、延展产业链和促进就业,推动了经济的增长,而经济的增长也为生产性服务业的发展提供了所需的基础设施和经济环境。     

Malmquist indices of productivity growth for Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia

This paper studies the total factor productivity （TFP） of banks in Malaysia with the emphasis on comparing the relative productivities of Islamic and Conventional banks. The Malmquist index approach is used to decompose productivity growth into technical efficiency and technological change. The productivity growth is measured and decomposed into technical change and efficiency change. The efficiency change is further decomposed into pure efficiency change and scale efficiency. It is found that Islamic banks＇ productivity growth is limited by its lack of technological change compared to its conventional counterparts. Nonetheless, both types of banks are operating at the correct level in terms of scale or size.     

基于Malmquist指数模型的我国银行业效率测评

文章运用Malmquist指数模型测算分析了2016-2019年我国31个省市银行业的全要素生产率以及其分解指标技术效率和技术进步的具体情况。研究发现:综合来看,近年来我国各省市银行业全要素生产率处于增势,其中技术进步水平的增长发挥了主要作用;分年度看,2017年各省市银行全要素生产率增长率极差最大,唯一的技术效率下降情况也发生在2017年;按各省市银行发展势头看,北京、河南、吉林、上海的银行全要素生产率由增转降,浙江的银行全要素生产率一直在降;按地区看,西南、西北、东北等地区银行业全要素生产率增长更为显著。据此,本文就进一步更好地促进银行业长远发展提出些许建议。     

Quantifying Structural Change in U.S. Agriculture: The Case of Research and Productivity

Previous work on structural change in agriculture has failed to distinguish long-run trends from structural breaks leading to new trends. We measure structural changes as statistically significant breaks in either stochastic or deterministic time trends, and apply these measures to agricultural productivity and research. Productivity has a break in 1925 accompanying agriculture's early experience with the Great Depression. Research trends shifted in 1930 as the Depression and new technology began to strongly influence efficient farm size and capitalization. After modeling lags between research and productivity impacts in a vector autoregression (VAR), we compare our results to earlier work by developing a procedure to estimate the rate of return to research from the impulse response function of the VAR.     

The Decomposition of Malmquist Productivity Indexes

Two different Malmquist productivity indexes have been proposed. One I call partially oriented because it is either output- or input-oriented, and the other is simultaneously output- and input-oriented. The partially oriented Malmquist index owes some of its popularity to the fact that it has been decomposed to isolate various sources of productivity change. Conversely, the simultaneously oriented Malmquist index has not achieved popularity in part because it has not been decomposed. In this paper I evaluate alternative decompositions of the partially oriented Malmquist index, and I obtain a new decomposition of the simultaneously oriented Malmquist index. This new decomposition leads me to conclude that the latter index is deserving of greater attention than it has received to date.     

基于DEA的北京市高技术产业R＆D效率比较分析

本文运用DEA模型全面测算了北京市高技术产业1996—2010年间R＆D的生产前沿面效率、综合技术效率、纯技术效率以及规模效率,对规模收益变化和投入产出的冗余与不足进行了具体分析,并针对北京市政府如何提高高技术产业的R＆D效率提出了建议。     

The geographical efficiency of education and research: The ranking of U.S. universities

This paper proposes to study the American efficiency of educational diffusion and research productivity following two distinctions: urban vs. rural areas and public vs. private universities. Following this geographical consideration, knowledge diffusion seems to be homogeneous over the American territory, whereas research productivity is more heterogeneous: American research efficiency decreased of 7% points, due to some rural university localizations. Universities in urban areas favor educational quality through high student selection criteria, contrary to those located in more rural areas. Third, public universities present higher educational efficiency, in favoring educational quality over research productivity: the lesser research efficiency of public institutions comes from difficulties in the management of several campuses, by comparison with the private institutions which are all single-campus.     

Estimating global frontier shifts and global Malmquist indices

The Malmquist index is a measure of productivity changes, of which an important component is the frontier shift or technological change. Often technological change can be viewed as a global phenomenon, and therefore individual or local measures of technological changes are aggregated into an overall measure, traditionally using geometric means. In this paper we propose a way of calculating global Malmquist indices and global frontier shift indices which provides a better estimation of the true frontier shift and furthermore is easy to calculate. Using simulation studies we show how this method outperforms the traditional aggregation approach, especially for sparsely populated production possibility sets and for frontiers that also change shape over time. Furthermore, our global indices can be used for unbalanced panels without disregarding any information. Finally, we show how the global indices are meaningful for calculating differences between frontiers from different groups rather than different time periods as illustrated in a small case study of bank branches in different countries.      

Estimating Capital Inputs for Productivity Measurement: An Overview of U.S. Concepts and Methods

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes measures of multifactor productivity, which are patterned after the Solow residual. Inputs of capital must be aggregated with inputs of labor. The theory requires a measure of the capital service flow, a rather abstract notion which is rarely observable. The BLS procedures for capital measurement are summarized, and the rationale for these procedures is explored. Implicit measures of capital services are derived from data on property income and data on historical investments which are detailed as to type of asset.     

基于DEA的我国各省物流效率评价实证研究

通过整理建立与物流效率相关的投入产出指标体系,收集各省的统计年鉴指标相关数据,应用数据包络分析(DEA)模型,对2010年我国14个省、市、自治区的物流效率进行对比分析.研究表明,样本中DEA总体无效的省、市共有7个,物流投入产出平均总体效率、平均纯技术效率、平均纯规模效率分别为0.868,0.943,0.918,并进一步应用投影分析,对非DEA有效单元的省市从物流投入指标的冗余量和产出指标的不足度两个方面分析了各决策单元在物流效率上存在的主要问题,并提出相应发展建议.     

DEA分析方法研究综述

介绍了数据包络分析(DEA)的产生和基本思想,然后对DEA分析的经济意义进行了详细介绍,突出综述了DEA分析的发展和应用,最后指出了应用中应该注意的问题。