Productivity growth patterns in US dairy products manufacturing plants

We analyse the productivity growth patterns in the US dairy products industry using the Census Bureau's plant-level data set. We decompose Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth into the scale and technical change components and analyse variability of plants’ productivity by constructing transition matrices. We observe a cross-sectional dispersion in plant-level productivity growth in the industry. Even though the industry aggregate shows a small TFP growth rate ?0.3%, quartile rank analysis shows that while the lowest productivity quartile plants average 1.9% loss in productivity, the highest productivity quartile plants average 1.1% growth annually. Our results show considerable movements of plants in their productivity rank categories overall and across age groups, and we find that the scale effect contribution to TFP growth accounts for about 90% of TFP growth on average in the industry. These plants extract scale efficiencies over technological progress to fuel TFP growth. The youngest plants start with the lowest productivity growth at the initial time period, but they catch up older plants productivity, which present the highest average growth rate through years. This may indicate a ‘learning-by-doing’ process for the industry.     

Indiaʼs mysterious manufacturing miracle

Using data on formal manufacturing plants in India, we report a large but imprecise speedup in productivity growth starting in the early 1990s (e.g., 1993–2007 compared to 1980–1992). We trace it to productivity growth within large plants (200 workers or more), as opposed to reallocation across such plants. As many economists believe Indian reforms during this era improved resource allocation, the absence of a growth pickup from reallocation is surprising. Moreover, when we look across industries we fail to robustly relate productivity growth to prominent reforms such as industrial de-licensing, tariff reductions, FDI liberalization, or lifting of small-scale industry reservations. Even under a generous reading of their effects, these reforms (at least as we measure them) account for less than one-third of the rapid productivity growth in Indian manufacturing from 1980–2007.     

Vintage capital,market structure and productivity in an evolutionary model of industry growth

This paper examines the effects of inter-firm variation in vintage equipment replacement policies on industry productivity and structure using an evolutionary model based on Nelson-Winter. Traditional industry productivity measures assume a graduated replacement policy with low variation across firms in the average age of the capital stock. This approach allows for inter-firm policy variation. The first part reviews the neoclassical treatment of vintage capital investment; the second part outlines an evolutionary model of vintage replacement in the context of industry growth; and the third part presents results of simulation experiments focused on the relationship between vintage replacement patterns and industry productivity growth. Findings suggest that inter-firm differences in vintage capital investment policies may account for significant shifts in the rates of industry productivity growth and changes in market structure.     

ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE: AN APPLICATION TO GREEK MANUFACTURING

To comprehend the impact of public infrastructure on economic performance this paper provides a measure of productivity growth as derived from duality theory. This productivity growth is decomposed into the components of technical change, returns to scale and the effects of public infrastructure, the variable of our interest. In an application, we opt for Greek manufacturing so as to investigate whether the decline in its growth rate is partly explained by public infrastructure. Despite some variation in the estimation results of shadow shares across industries, public infrastructure asserts a cost saving effect in most industries, though it also appears that traditional labour‐intensive industries with lower level of technological advancement do not benefit from the provision of public infrastructure. The estimation results further demonstrate that while public infrastructure enhanced productivity growth over the sample period for most industries, low infrastructure investment in the 1970s and the 1980s undermined productivity growth.     

Productivity growth from an international trade perspective

This paper presents a framework to assess the relative importance of three key sources of productivity growth that international trade research focuses on: (1) inter‐industry specialization; (2) intra‐industry reallocation of resources across heterogeneous firms; and (3) technological progress. We illustrate how to apply the framework by deciphering the productivity dynamics of the Swiss manufacturing industry. We find that intra‐industry reallocations are the most important source of growth in aggregate total factor productivity, spurred by the productivity growth of large, incumbent firms and the entry of new firms. Inter‐industry specialization and general technological progress, nevertheless, remain important supplementary sources of productivity growth.     

基于面板数据的制造业国际R&D溢出及生产率增长途径分析

为了检验产业自身科技水平对制造业国际R&D溢出效应及产业生产率提高途径的影响,根据1999—2004年产业R&D平均投入强度,将制造业划分为高、中、低技术产业,然后基于DEA对其全要素生产率变化、技术效率变化和技术进步变化指数进行测算,最后实证检验了国内本产业、国内其它产业、国外本产业R&D资本对上述3类产业全要素生产率变化、技术效率变化和技术进步变化的不同影响。结果表明:国外R&D资本对高技术企业存在显著的正向技术溢出效应,而对于中、低技术产业来说,本产业R&D资本是生产率提高的主要来源。根据上述分析结果,对我国的产业研发投入、国际贸易政策的制定提出了建议。     

Industry concentration in South African manufacturing industry: Trends and consequences, 1972–96

This paper reports industry concentration measures for the South African manufacturing sector over the 1972–1996 period for the three digit industry classification. Noted are high level of industry concentration in South African manufacturing, and a rising trend in concentration across a wide range of industries as measured by the Gini coefficient, though some countervailing evidence emerges on the Rosenbluth index. Analytically the paper examines the impact of concentration on employment and investment rates. Results show that increased concentration unambiguously lowers employment. For investment rates, increased inequality of market share serves to raise investment rates, while falling firm numbers for any given inequality of market share lowers investment rates. The difference is consistent with a disciplining effect of a competitive fringe of firms on the behaviour of large firms in a market.     

IT投资对我国机械制造业上市公司技术效率的影响分析

将IT投资作为投入要素和企业特征变量,基于SFA模型和DEA-Tobit模型分别构造了6个模型,以2004—2008年我国机械、设备、仪表制造业上市公司为样本,就IT投资对我国机械制造业上市公司技术效率的影响进行了实证分析。结果表明:SFA和DEA在测算技术效率方面具有较好的一致性,"生产率悖论"仍然存在;两种视角下测得的技术效率具有显著差异,且在SFA中,作为企业特征变量的IT投资的影响大于其作为生产要素的影响,这在DEA中情况正好相反;企业规模与技术效率正相关,企业资产负债率和企业年限与技术效率负相关,股权集中度与技术效率的关系不显著。     

R&D投资对企业绩效的影响:基于浙江永康制造业的实证研究

本文应用企业资源观和组织学习理论,旨在检验R&D投资对企业绩效的影响,并进一步考察其作用机制。来自浙江永康市139家制造企业的数据表明,R&D投资对企业绩效各个维度的影响并非一致。具体而言,R&D投资和企业利润呈倒U形关系,而对企业生产率的影响并不显著。进一步,R&D投资对企业利润的影响是通过新产品作为完全中介变量的。本文的研究结果暗示,对于R&D投资到一定水平的企业,再增加R&D投资需要谨慎决策。此外,除了产品创新,企业管理者需要探索创新其他渠道,并努力发挥多种渠道的协同效应。     

Link between innovation and productivity in Canadian manufacturing industries

Empirical studies commonly use research and development (R&D) to measure innovation and often find, especially in Canada, no strong link between productivity and innovation. In this article, we model innovation as an unobservable latent variable that underlies four indicators: R&D, patents, technology adoption, and skills. We find that these indicators are reasonably good measures of innovation for aggregate manufacturing. However, except for skills, the reliability of the indicators for innovation differs among individual industries. Our innovation indexes, based on the latent variable model, show that most manufacturing industries became more innovative over the 1980–1997 period. The pace of innovation in the electrical and electronic products industry accelerated during the 1990s. In addition, we show that the new measure of innovation has a positive and statistically significant impact on productivity. It takes from 1 to 3 years, depending on the industry, for innovation to generate an impact on productivity.     

Finance and sources of growth: evidence from the U.S. states

How does financial development affect economic growth: through its impact on accumulation of physical and human capital or by boosting total factor productivity (TFP) growth? We use a new data set on output, inputs, and total factor productivity for the US states to study this question. Unlike previous cross-country research that tries to disentangle the channels through which financial development impacts growth, we use a plausibly exogenous measure of financial development: the timing of banking deregulation across states during the period 1970–2000. At the same time our new data set allows us to go beyond what was previously done in the state banking deregulation literature and identify whether finance impacts states’ input accumulation or TFP growth. We find, in line with existing cross-country studies, that deregulation boosts growth by accelerating both TFP growth and the accumulation of physical capital without having any impact on human capital. In contrast to the cross-country studies, we also find that the effects of deregulation are largely independent of states’ initial level of development; both rich and poor states grow faster after deregulation. Additionally, since our data set breaks down aggregate output into three sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, and the remaining industries, we are able to show that deregulation accelerates the growth of productivity in manufacturing. This last finding answers an important critique of the banking deregulation studies which asserts that observed growth effects may be coming from the growth of financial industry itself and not from the beneficial effect of finance on other industries, such as manufacturing.     

Testing the Linkages between Trade and Productivity Growth

The authors examine the effect of trade on productivity growth using data from nine manufacturing industries across 12 OECD countries over the period 1978–97. Because causality between productivity growth and trade share runs both ways, geographical characteristics of countries are used to instrument for average bilateral trade volumes over the 20‐year period. In addition, to exploit the time‐series nature of the data, the authors construct a panel dataset and employ dynamic panel data techniques. After controlling for industry‐specific heterogeneity, the results indicate that increased exposure to trade, in particular higher import volumes, exerts a positive influence on industries' productivity growth. However, the effect is rather small.     

ICT spillovers and productivity in Canada: provincial and industry analysis

Research on the effect of information and communication technology (ICT) on productivity in developed countries is already extensive, but the spillover and time-varying effects of ICT investment across economic activities have been only minimally explored. This paper investigates the impacts of ICT and its spillovers on productivity in Canada, focusing on heterogeneity across provinces and industries over time. The panel data estimation model includes 10 provinces with diverse economic activities for the period 1990–2008, and the two-digit level industries for the period 1981–2008. The findings show that ICT has a positive impact on labour productivity, but the effects vary significantly across provinces, industries, and time. Specifically, while provinces with higher shares of manufacturing and services in their GDP have reaped the benefits of ICT investment, other provinces primarily dependent on natural resources and agriculture are lagging behind. The industry-level analysis also reveals that manufacturing and services industries have benefited from ICT investment much more than primary sector industries. The results further indicate that ICT investment in the USA, a major trading partner, has spilled over to some Canadian provinces and industries and that the overall ICT effects are stabilized in those ICT-intensive provinces and industries.     

Foreign direct investment in services and manufacturing productivity: Evidence for Chile

This paper examines the impact of substantial foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in producer service sectors on the total factor productivity (TFP) of Chilean manufacturing firms. Positive effects are obtained in firm fixed effects instrumental variables regressions and show that forward linkages from FDI in services explain 7% of the observed increase in Chile's manufacturing users' TFP. Our findings also suggest that service FDI fosters innovation activities in manufacturing. Moreover, we show that service FDI offers opportunities for laggard firms to catch up with industry leaders.     

基于行业异质性的制造业绿色技术创新能力演化研究——兼论企业研发资金投入的影响

基于行业异质性视角,通过计算各行业污染强度PL值,将中国27个制造行业按污染程度划分为轻、中、重度污染行业,运用系统动力学方法揭示制造业整体和3类制造行业绿色技术创新能力的演化规律,并探究企业研发资金投入对其的影响。研究发现,轻度、中度和重度污染制造行业绿色产品创新能力、绿色工艺创新能力和绿色技术创新能力增幅差异较大;企业研发资金投入对轻度污染行业绿色产品创新能力和绿色技术创新能力影响最大;行业污染程度越高,其绿色工艺创新能力受企业研发资金投入的影响越大。     

EXPORTING AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM THE TAIWAN ELECTRONICS PLANTS

This paper uses propensity score matching techniques and ordinary least square regressions to examine the relationship between exporting and productivity growth in the Taiwan electronics industry. Using data from three census years, we find that plants with higher productivity growth tend to enter the export market, supporting the self‐selection mechanism. The evidence of learning‐by‐exporting is mixed, however. While the plants exporting throughout the sample period show small differences in productivity growth from non‐exporters in the downturn period, continuing exporters outperform non‐exporters in the upturn period. Thus, our results suggest that the direction of causality mainly runs from productivity to exporting rather than vice versa.     

Demand and innovation in productivity growth

The labour productivity impact of demand and innovation is investigated in this paper combining insights from the Kaldorian and Schumpeterian traditions. After a review of studies in such traditions, a general model is proposed for explaining productivity growth in European manufacturing and service industries in the late 1990s, followed by two distinct specifications for the industries oriented toward product innovation, and for those where process innovation dominates. The empirical analysis is based on the match of the SIEPI‐CIS2 database developed at the University of Urbino and Eurostat Input–Output Tables at the industry level, for 22 manufacturing sectors and 10 services sectors. Six European countries are considered: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The results show that productivity growth in European industries can be explained by a combination of technology factors and demand dynamics, confirming the complementarity of technology and demand effects. On the demand side, household consumption emerges as the most pervasive component of demand, able to stimulate greater efficiency in all manufacturing and service industries. Investment also has a role, focused however on the capital goods producing industries. On the technology side, the mechanisms of productivity growth are fundamentally different in the industries oriented towards product innovation and in those dominated by process innovation. This evidence supports the view that innovation in firms and industries can be associated to two contrasting strategies, searching either for technological competitiveness, through knowledge generation, product innovation and expansion of new markets, or aiming at greater cost competitiveness, through job reductions, labour saving investment, flexibility and restructuring.     

The Role of Human Capital in Manufacturing Plant Growth: Evidence from Taiwan

In this study, we set out to investigate the potential relationships between plant growth and size, age and human capital using a unique employer–employee matched data set for the Taiwanese manufacturing industry from 1998 to 2005. The general assumption of a reduction in plant growth with increases in plant size and plant age is confirmed by our manufacturing industry data set, while plant growth increases with the stock of human capital, albeit at a diminishing rate, thereby implying a positive concave relationship between plant growth and human capital. Moreover, we find that for plants with higher levels of human capital, the reduction in plant growth is more moderate with regard to size than with regard to age, indicating that differences in the stock of human capital within plants will tend to lead to differences in the patterns of age and size impacts on such plants' growth. Finally, substantial differences were observed among the influences of the various characteristics on plants with high, moderate and low growth in size.     

Diversity in innovation and productivity in Europe

The diversity in innovation patterns across manufacturing and service industries and in their outcomes in terms of hourly labor productivity are investigated in this article considering six European countries. The Schumpeterian insights into the variety of innovation are developed in this work by identifying different innovation–performance relationships for industries and countries, relying either on the dominant role of product innovation, or on the diffusion of process improvements. Moreover, the “push” effect of innovation is combined with the “pull” effect of demand, by considering the impact of the dynamics of consumption and investment at the sectoral level. The results point out a “North-South” divide across EU countries, with the three countries of Northern Europe closely associated to the model of productivity growth based on product innovation, and the three Southern countries, mainly relying on the mechanisms by which process innovation is at the root of productivity improvements.     

外商直接投资对我国制造业自主创新投入的影响

本文利用2003—2007年我国28个制造行业的面板数据,检验了外商直接投资（FDI）参与度、FDI研发强度以及科技人员比重等因素对内资制造业自主创新投入的影响。结果表明上述三个因素对全部内资制造业的自主创新投入的影响并不显著。将制造业划分为高技术行业和一般行业,外资参与度对内资高技术行业研发强度的抑制程度要小于一般行业。外资研发强度对内资高技术行业研发强度的影响显著为负,对一般行业亦产生消极影响,但不显著。外资科技人员比重明显促进了高技术行业的自主创新投入,对低技术行业的研发支出强度产生负面影响,但统计上也不显著。上述结论意味着外资参与对内资自主创新投入的影响较为间接,需要关注直接影响内资自主创新投入的外资研发强度和外资科技人员比重等因素。内资企业要主动提高自主创新投入,形成自主创新能力,缩小和外资的技术差距。