Patterns of technology,industry concentration,and productivity growth without scale effects

This paper investigates the relationship between geographic patterns of industry and economic growth in a two-country model of trade with no scale effect, where productivity growth is generated by firm investment in process innovation. We find that dispersed equilibria with industry located in both countries produce higher growth rates than concentrated equilibria with all industry located in one country. The highest growth rate arises for equal industry shares and no productivity gap, implying that industry concentration has a negative effect on overall growth. Convergence towards a dispersed equilibrium is contingent on transport costs and knowledge dispersion.     

Transport costs, intermediate goods, and localized growth

This paper presents a dynamic, two-regional, general equilibrium model in which interregional production and trade patterns are endogenously determined. Localized growth stems from the geographical concentration of an industrial sector exhibiting permanent productivity increases. Geographical concentration is a result of the interaction between local market size and local competition in the differentiated input industry. Regional factor endowment with an immobile factor is decisive for the long-run specialization, trade and growth patterns between the regions if large endowment differences prevail. With equal-sized regions, multiple equilibria exist. Furthermore, we argue that integration might lead to increasing regional concentration of production and innovation.     

行业生产率、行业发展速度和行业收入增长——基于SVAR模型的研究

运用结构向量自回归(SVAR)模型,对中国1978年至2009年农业、制造业、金融业收入增长的内在机制进行研究,结果表明:农业收入对生产率和发展速度冲击的反应是发散式反馈效应,生产率与农业发展速度的变化导致农业收入有一个较小且短期的收入增长,之后农业收入出现大幅度的波动;制造业收入对生产率和发展速度冲击的反应是一个收敛式反馈效应,制造业生产率与发展速度可以稳定地长期地提高制造业收入水平;金融业生产率与行业发展速度引起行业收入长期大幅度的波动,金融衍生工具可以在一定程度上克服波动的负面影响。     

Secondary products and the measurement of productivity growth

The paper considers alternative treatments of secondary products in input-output systems and analyzes their implications for the measurement of productivity growth at both the sectoral and overall level. Two standard models of secondary products are used: (1) the commodity technology model and (2) the industry technology model. It is argued that the first model correctly relates sectoral and overall levels of productivity growth; the second model, though more conventional, aggregates sectoral levels to a biased estimate of overall productivity growth. Estimates of the two measures are provided using U.S. 85-sector input-output data for 1967, 1972, and 1977. The empirical results indicate that the alternative assumptions do not lead to significantly different estimates of commodity-level and industry-level productivity growth over this period for the full economy but do for several sectors. Moreover, changes in secondary production did not contribute significantly to the decline in productivity growth over this period but secondary production was found to have a much lower rate of productivity growth than primary production.     

Productivity growth and regulation of P/L insurance: 1980–1984

Measurement of productivity growth in a regulated industry is confounded by the effects of regulation on costs. Property-liability insurers are subject to premium regulation in some states; regulatory capacity constraints which limit output growth exist also. This research examines productivity growth for property-liability insurers and the interaction of their productivity growth with regulation. To control for regulatory effects, the Averch-Johnson model is generalized to apply to insurance. Statistical tests on a sample of 100 of the largest property-liability insurers support the hypothesis that regulatory requirements for these insurers resulted in higher rates in rate regulated states. Overall, productivity growth increased slightly over the sample period.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through E.F. Sudit.     

我国物流业全要素生产率的动态演化——基于DEA的Malmquist指数的实证分析

首先利用非参数的DEA-Malmquist生产率指数方法对1995-2007年中国物流业全要素生产率(TFP)的变动进行测度,并对TFP指数进了分解。研究结果表明:(1)我国物流业生产率总体上处于增长趋势,并呈现先增长后下降再增长的特征;(2)技术进步是物流业生产率增长的关键因素,而技术效率是物流业生产率改善的瓶颈。     

A Decomposition of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Korean Manufacturing Industries: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

This paper applies a stochastic frontier production model to Korean manufacturing industries, to decompose the sources of total factor productivity (TFP) growth into technical progress, changes in technical efficiency, changes in allocative efficiency, and scale effects. Empirical results based on data from 1980–1994 show that productivity growth was driven mainly by technical progress, that changes in technical efficiency had a significant positive effect, and that allocative efficiency had a negative effect. This study suggests that specific guidelines are required to promote productivity in each industry, and provides additional insight into understanding the recent debate on TFP growth in Korean manufacturing.     

改革开放以来中国劳动生产率增长的结构效应与增长效应驱动力探究——基于九大行业国际比较的视角

本文基于1978～2017年主要经济体9大行业数据,将劳动生产率增长分解为结构效应和增长效应,对改革开放以来我国劳动生产率增长驱动因素进行测度并进行国际比较.研究发现,经过40余年发展,金融商业服务业已成为我国9个主要行业中劳动生产率最高的行业,与美国等发达经济体较为接近;农业、建筑业、贸易服务等行业劳动生产率水平相对...     

Uncertainty and the measurement of productivity

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirically implementable framework for the analysis of the effects of uncertainty on firm behavior. In particular, the paper provides a model which can be used to calculate productivity growth for firms facing uncertainty and to decompose the growth in total factor productivity into its various components. It can also be used to identify the contributions of uncertainty and risk aversion.Applying the model to the U.S. textile industry, we find that price uncertainty had a small effect on productivity growth.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through M. Brown.     

Firm turnover and productivity differentials in Ethiopian manufacturing

Are the forces of market selection at work in Africa? How successful are markets in these economies in sorting out firms on an efficiency basis following the sequence of reforms to liberalize and particularly to transform some of the previous command economies to market oriented ones? What is the pattern of entry and exit in the manufacturing sector and how does it affect industry productivity growth? This study examines these issues using firm-level industrial census data from the Ethiopian manufacturing sector. It is the first attempt to analyze firm turnover and productivity differentials using industrial census data in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ethiopian manufacturing sector exhibits a high firm turnover rate that declines with size. Exit is particularly high among new entrants; 60% exit within the first 3 years in business. Our study consistently shows a significant difference in productivity across different groups of firms, which is reflected in a turnover pattern where the less productive exit while firms with better productivity survive. We also found higher aggregate productivity growth over the sample period, mainly driven by firm turnover.     

Learning-by-doing and the sources of productivity growth: A dynamic model with application to U.S. agriculture

The significance of learning to productivity growth is formulated within a dynamic adjustment-cost framework. Explicitly treating the acquisition of knowledge as a firm-specific capital good entering the production function along with other conventional inputs, the dynamic optimization model integrates the learning-by-doing hypothesis with technical change, scale, and disequilibrium input use effects in the aggregate productivity analysis. The theoretical framework is applied to examining the dynamic components accounting for the growth of U.S. production agriculture over the 1950–82 period. The results imply a less important role for technical change and assign a substantial role to the previously unmeasured contribution of learning-by-doing to the growth of aggregate agriculture industry.The editor for this paper was Melvyn Fuss.     

Efficiency and productivity in the Thai non-life insurance industry

This paper estimates a stochastic cost frontier for a sample of the non-life insurance industry in Thailand from 2000 to 2007. Our model explicitly considers the heteroscedasticity in the variances of the noise and inefficiency components that could affect the position of the cost frontier as well as the measurement of efficiency. Tests for double heteroscedasticity and appropriate specification for the cost frontier are performed. The chosen model is used to examine whether economies of scale and a change in technology exist. In addition, this paper calculates total factor productivity (TFP) change and decomposes it into scale effect, cost efficiency effect, technology effect, output effect, price effect, and environmental effect. Our results reveal that, on average, Thai non-life insurance firms are between 74 and 79 % efficient, that economies of scale exist, and that regress in technology shifts the cost frontier upward by 2.2 %. The regress in technology is the dominant contributor to a negative TFP growth of 1.15 %. The restructuring of the industry following the 1997 Asian financial crisis finally paid off when the industry experienced technology progress in 2005 and beyond. Between 2005 and 2007, technology progress and productivity growth occurred at a little over 2 % a year. In-depth analysis of the most and the least efficient firms reveals that most efficient firms tend to strategically select types of insurance services and underwrite average and small size sum insured per policy to diversify their risks. In addition, they tend to be savvy investors. The opposite holds for the least efficient firms which concentrate in providing labor-intensive, small sum automobile insurance policies or underwrite large coverage policies for fewer policyholders. Balancing the mix of insurance types, spreading risk across insurance types or across number of policyholders, investing in high yield assets, or developing a market niche may prove beneficial for improving cost efficiency.     

京沪服务业增长比较分析

利用1978年至2009年的时间序列数据,基于鲍莫尔—富克斯提出的服务业就业份额增长的影响因素理论,对北京和上海的服务业增长进行了实证检验及比较。从计量分析结果来看,京沪服务业劳动生产率的增长都相对滞后,这是两市服务业就业增长较快的主因,而这也正符合鲍莫尔—富克斯假说的基本观点。但是具体说来,北京和上海的服务业增长也存在着明显差异:影响北京服务业就业增长的因素中仅有服务业劳动生产率增长滞后的影响是显著的,地区人均收入增长这一因素的影响则不显著;而服务业劳动生产率增长滞后和人均收入增长这两个因素对上海服务业就业增长均产生了显著的积极影响。     

Efficiency, productivity, and scale economies in the U.S. property-liability insurance industry

The paper examines efficiency, productivity and scale economies in the U.S. property-liability insurance industry. Productivity change is analyzed using Malmquist indices, and efficiency is estimated using data envelopment analysis. The results indicate that the majority of firms below median size in the industry are operating with increasing returns to scale, and the majority of firms above median size are operating with decreasing returns to scale. However, a significant number of firms in each size decile have achieved constant returns to scale. Over the sample period, the industry experienced significant gains in total factor productivity, and there is an upward trend in scale and allocative efficiency. More diversified firms and insurance groups were more likely to achieve efficiency and productivity gains. Higher technology investment is positively related to efficiency and productivity improvements.     

Total Factor Productivity Growth and Urbanization Economies: A Case of Indian Industries

Based on panel data for fifteen major states in India, this paper provides evidence in favor of the existence of urbanization economies. In eleven of seventeen two-digit industry groups, total factor productivity growth is responsive to urban population or industrial spread. Although the impact of these variables taken to capture agglomeration economies on total factor productivity growth is not monotonic, economic policy would yield a sub-optimal outcome by ignoring the positive effect of the size factor. Urban population or industrial spread benefits firms by possibly improving the quality of labor and enhancing the productive utilization of resources.     

Local Economic Structure and Growth

Abstract

This paper tests how the local economic structure—measured by local sector specialization, competition and diversity—affects growth of manufacturing sectors. Most of the empirical literature assumes that in the long run more productive regions will attract more workers and use employment growth as a measure of local productivity growth. However, this approach is based on strong assumptions, such as those of national labour markets and homogeneous labour. This paper shows that if we relax these assumptions, regional adjusted wage growth is a better measure of productivity growth than employment growth. This measure is used in order to study regional growth in Portuguese regions between 1985 and 1994. Evidence is found of MAR externalities in some sectors and no evidence of Jacobs or Porter externalities in most of the sectors. These results are at odds with the findings for employment-based regressions, which show that regional concentration and the region's size have a negative effect in most of the sectors. It is also shown that simply using regional wage growth would overstate the effect of regional concentration and competition on long-run growth.     

Problems with (dis)aggregating productivity,and another productivity paradox

Using a standard definition of productivity growth, it is shown that a country may have higher productivity growth than another country in each sector, but may have a lower productivity growth rate overall. Also, it is shown that popular methods for aggregating firm/industry estimates of productivity growth have a serious problem in that productivity of all firms/industries can go up, but aggregate productivity can fall. This is not necessarily due to changes in the reallocation of resources across firms/industries. Hence, there are problems for the interpretation of previously published articles which use these methods. There can be inappropriate assessments of the cyclical properties of productivity, and the productivity impact of industry dynamics, micro-economic reforms and regulatory change. Index-number methods that avoid these aggregation problems are introduced.     

Explaining Bank Productivity in Ghana

The objective of this paper is to examine productivity changes among Ghanaian banks. The Malmquist productivity index is employed to estimate total factor productivity changes and its components on a panel of 18 banks from 2003 to 2011. The results indicate that productivity growth was attributable to the catch‐up effect of efficiency changes. We also find productivity growth across three categories of bank size to be driven by efficiency changes. From a panel regression analysis, we identify size, concentration, income diversification and risk as the factors that explain productivity differences among Ghanaian banks. Recommendations for improving bank productivity are derived from the results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wage bargaining,productivity growth and long-run industry structure

This paper studies the innovation dynamics of an oligopolistic industry. The firms compete not only in the output market but also by engaging in productivity enhancing innovations to reduce labor costs. Rent sharing may generate productivity dependent wage differentials. Productivity growth creates intertemporal spillover effects, which affect the incentives for innovation at subsequent dates. Over time the industry equilibrium approaches a steady state. The paper characterizes the evolution of the industry's innovation behavior and its market structure on the adjustment path.     

国际贸易、技术进步和中国工业行业的生产率增长

内生增长理论认为技术进步是经济增长最为重要的助推力,推动技术进步的力量是对研发的投资和国际贸易的发展。随着经济贸易与信息技术的飞速发展,社会对国际贸易、技术进步的关注程度日渐提升。通过深入分析国际贸易与工业行业生产率之间的关系,可以有针对性地应用有效手段对国际贸易进行调整,使其可以继续带动技术的进步并促进工业行业生产率的提升。基于此,论文探究了我国国际贸易、技术进步与工业行业生产率增长的关系,阐述了国际贸易、技术进步对于工业行业生产率的真实影响。