Catching-up of East German Labour Productivity in the 1990s

We provide empirical evidence for exogenous and endogenous catching-up of East German labour productivity to West German levels. We argue that labour productivity in East Germany has caught up faster than has happened elsewhere. The sudden formation of the German Monetary Union was followed by large transfers to East Germany, migration of workers to West Germany, reorganization and privatization of East German firms. This has quickly led to a partial closing of the organizational, idea and object gaps that existed between East and West Germany. This paper analyses labour productivity in East and West Germany using both aggregate German data and unbalanced panel analysis of developments in East and West Germany. Factors affecting the organization of production, and especially privatization and 'foreign' firms, are found to be particularly important in this context.     

Growth Effects of EU Membership: The Case of East Germany

The East German experience after unification in 1990 probably comes close to what might be called a controlled experiment for assessing the growth effects of EU membership. This article uses an open-economy neoclassical growth model as a measure of reference against which the actual performance of the East German economy can be evaluated. With no obvious differences in institutions and technology, and with physical capital accumulation in East Germany exceeding the West German rate, differences in human capital remain as the major reason for differences between the theoretical and the actual East German growth rate. Simulation results suggest that East Germany's stock of human capital per worker reaches only about one third of the West Germany level. The main lesson from the East German experience for other EU accession countries is that catching up may come to a halt below the EU average, even under pretty favorable institutional and financial conditions.     

Assessing the contribution of public capital to private production: Evidence from the German manufacturing sector

Using time-series cross-section data from the manufacturing sector of the 11 West German 'Bundesländer' (Federal States) from 1970 to 1996, I examine the impact of public capital on private production. My econometric analysis explicitly takes into account four of the most frequent specification issues in the context of time-series crosssection data analysis: serial correlation, groupwise heteroscedasticity, cross-sectional correlation and non-stationarity of data. For all approaches and tested specifications, I find that public capital is a significant input for production in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, I find that differences in public capital endowment can explain long-term differences in productivity across the Bundesländer. One tentative conclusion that can be drawn from this finding is that differences in public capital endowment might also explain a part of the still-existing productivity gap between manufacturing in East and West Germany. However, I emphasise that the existence of positive effects of public capital on private production is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for concluding that public investments should be boosted in the future.     

制度质量、知识资本与工业绿色生产效率提升

在理论分析的基础上,采用GML指数法测算2001-2015年中国各省份工业绿色生产效率变化情况,实证检验制度质量及其调节下知识资本对工业绿色生产效率的影响作用。结果发现,市场化程度、契约执行度对工业绿色生产效率增长具有促进作用,而环境管制强度对技术进步、效率变化的短期作用不明显;制度质量各指标的二次项系数均显著为正,对工业绿色生产效率提升具有长效作用;知识资本各指标除国外技术引进强度外均对工业绿色生产效率具有正向促进作用;制度质量调节下知识资本对工业绿色生产效率具有促进作用。因此,应持续优化制度质量,建立长效机制,实施差异化知识资本积累与创新驱动战略。     

INNOVATION AND EXPORT PERFORMANCE: ADJUSTMENT AND REMAINING DIFFERENCES IN EAST AND WEST GERMAN MANUFACTURING

Abstract

The economic situation in Germany 16 years after reunification is marked by the fading out of the adjustment process between East and West. This paper refers to this context analyzing the export behavior comparing firms in West and East Germany. Our estimates confirm a strong relationship between innovations and export performance as well as structural differences between East and West German firms. East German firms are less likely to export than firms in the West. Besides, West German medium technology firms are comparable in their export behavior to high tech firms while East German firms are more similar to the low technology sector. Labor productivity turns out to be more important in East Germany. We interpret these findings as a specialization of West German firms towards technologically-driven high-quality markets, whereas East German companies are faced with higher sunk costs and seem to operate more often in less dynamic, price-sensitive markets.     

Study on the industrial Eco-Efficiency in East China based on the Super Efficiency DEA Model: an example of the 2003–2013 panel data

The article uses the panel data of six provinces and one chartered city in East China from 2003 to 2013 as an example, constructs the input–output indicators system of Eco-Efficiency, calculates each region’s industrial Eco-Efficiencies throughout the 11 years by the Super Efficiency DEA Model, carries out dynamic studies on the efficiencies by using the Malmquist Index and analyses the factors influencing the efficiencies by the Tobit model. The empirical studies suggest the following: the regions in East China have relatively high industrial Eco-Efficiencies, and the efficiencies turn out a downward then upward trend; there are disparities among the regions as Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu are regions of relatively high industrial Eco-Efficiencies; the region all have Tfpch (productivity changes) greater than 1, of which the average is 7.2%, and the industrial Eco-Efficiencies are mainly driven by technology advancement; research and development, foreign capital and industrial structure each has a positive relationship with the industrial Eco-Efficiencies, and research and development has a significant influence, while industrial structure has an insignificant influence, and environment governance has a negative and significant influence.     

Innovation spending and productivity growth in the German economy 1980–1986

A newly developed technique involving vertically integrated input-output sectors is used to examine the relationship between labour productivity and innovation expenditures in the German economy during the period 1980 to 1986. The productivity measures used, dubbed Harrod-Robinson-Read (HRR), take into account the direct and indirect labour used in each consumption goods sector. Included in these measures is the labour content of new capital investment.

The HRR measures show higher rates of productivity growth in most sectors, compared to the simple direct labour requirements measures. This is due to the fact that the HRR measures take into account the increased efficiency with which new capital is produced. The second part of the study examines the relationship between labour productivity and innovation expenditures as measured by the IFO (Institute for Economic Research – Munich) innovation survey. Using cross section data for 58 German industries, a strong correlation was found between direct labour productivity growth and direct innovation expenditure.

These results suggest that with more detailed capital expenditure data it should be possible to describe more precisely the relationships between innovation activity, spending on new capital, and productivity changes. The key to examining these relationships in more detail is the growing wealth of information contained in recent innovation surveys such as those done by the IFO.     

Capital substitution in an industrial revolution

A unified growth model is presented in which productivity growth is driven by learning‐by‐doing. We show that the growth rate of productivity is an increasing function of the share of capital. It is assumed that the industrial sector has a higher capital share than the agricultural sector and that the ability to substitute one output for the other in the construction of capital goods slowly rises over time. Two distinct regimes of constant growth emerge, connected by a rapid transition in which the growth rate of income increases by an order of magnitude, indicative of an industrial revolution.     

Dynamic adjustment and long-run equilibria: Panel data estimates for the East German states

The economic development in East Germany after unification shows both, success and failure. In the early nineties wages and productivity increased fast; later on catching up faded out. A central question from a policy viewpoint is whether this fading out indicates a reduction of the adjustment speed or an equilibrium gap. This points towards a stationarity analysis of differences between East and West Germany. Our paper presents panel data estimates for the East German states for wages, productivity, competitiveness and unemployment. The results reveal that the adjustment was fast, but the equilibrium gaps are large.     

International spillovers,productivity growth and openness in Thailand: an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis

Thailand has experienced economic growth well above world averages from 1960 to the recent crisis. While the controversy over Thailand and East Asian growth has discussed the role of capital accumulation versus productivity, we analyze the general equilibrium interaction between productivity and investment in an intertemporal growth model. The high growth is understood as a prolonged transition path with gradual tariff reduction and endogenous productivity driven by foreign spillover feeding capital investment. Counterfactual analyses show how protection would have reduced growth with productivity and investment slowdown, while shock liberalization would have raised immediate growth with faster convergence to steady state.     

THE EFFICIENCY OF REAL AND HUMAN RESOURCES IN HUNGARIAN INDUSTRY

The author attributes economic growth in Hungary to three factors: structural change, increase of employment, and productivity. On the basis of this he points out that in the 1950's the first two factors were responsible for nearly half of the economic growth. From the 1960's this tendency has changed; more and more importance has been taken by the increase of productivity. As the main source of economic growth is the increase of industrial productivity, in the further part of the study the author makes an attempt to break down the development of Hungarian industry into its components and to analyse their efficiency. Starting from the present conditions of industrial development he investigates what further increase of industry the resources accumulated till now and their probable growth will allow in the future.
Taking into account the role of material and human resources the author draws the following conclusions.
Industrial production will increase in the future at the same rate as productivity.
The increase of industrial investment will probably be lessened, which postulates the greater increase of capital productivity as well as that productivity will increase at a higher rate than the capital-labour ratio.
These conclusions assume an increase in the efficiency of industrial investment and an above average increase in the high-productivity branches.
A further source of increasing productivity is accumulated human capital. The higher educational level is one of the guarantees for the ever-increasing role of productivity in economic growth in the future.     

The East-West German gap in revenue productivity:Just a tale of output prices?

East German manufacturers’ revenue productivity is substantially below West German levels, even three decades after German unification. Using firm-product-level data with product quantities and prices, we analyze the role of product specialization and show that the prominent “extended work bench hypothesis” cannot explain these sustained productivity differences. Eastern firms specialize in simpler product varieties generating less consumer value and being manufactured with less or cheaper inputs. Yet, such specialization cannot explain the productivity gap because Eastern firms are physically less productive for given product prices. Hence, there is a genuine price-adjusted physical productivity disadvantage of Eastern compared to Western firms.JEL: D24, L11, L2, O47     

经济集聚、产业结构与城市土地产出率——基于我国234个地级城市1999-2006年面板数据的实证研究

文章运用面板数据,实证分析了经济集聚和产业结构等因素对城市土地产出率的影响。研究结果表明,资本密度是影响城市土地产出率最重要的因素,资本对劳动的替代性造成就业密度对城市土地产出率的贡献很小,甚至为负;城市净集聚效应为负和资本劳动比不断攀升,说明城市资本投入是低效率的;扩大城市人口规模、控制城市用地面积、发展先进制造业有利于提高城市土地产出率,经济集聚和产业结构因素对不同规模和不同地区城市土地产出率的影响程度和作用方向具有显著差异。     

Efficiency analysis of German electricity distribution utilities – non-parametric and parametric tests

This study applies non-parametric and parametric tests to assess the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in Germany. Traditional issues in electricity sector benchmarking are addressed, such as the role of scale effects and optimal utility size, as well as new evidence specific to the situation in Germany. Labour, capital, and peak load capacity are used as inputs, and units sold and the number of customers as output. The data cover 307 (out of 553) German electricity distribution utilities. A data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied with constant returns to scale (CRS) as the main productivity analysis technique, whereas stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) with distance function is the verification method. The results suggest that returns to scale play but a minor role; only very small utilities have a significant cost advantage. Low customer density is found to affect the efficiency score significantly, in particular in the lower third of all observations. Surprisingly, East German utilities feature a higher average efficiency than their West German counterparts. The correlation tests imply a high coherence of the results.     

工业结构变化与结构效应分析——以宁夏为例

工业化过程中,资源要素在产业之间重新配置导致的工业结构变动是总体增长的一个重要因子。因此按照要素密集度界定产业类型,并对工业结构效应进行研究更加具有意义。笔者以宁夏1997年～2008年工业行业数据为分析基础,对工业劳动生产率、资本生产率和全要素生产率增长进行分解发现生产效率的提升主要来自于产业内增长效应,结构转移效应虽然也起着一定的作用,但其贡献并不显著,甚至呈现出逐渐降低的趋势。值得注意的是,不同分解效应对不同产业类型生产率增长的贡献各异,不同产业类型对总体生产率增长的贡献也有着显著差异。劳动密集型产业及资本密集程度较高的产业类型对整个工业劳动生产率和资本生产率的增长起着主要作用,全要素生产率增长则主要来自于劳动密集型产业和资本技术密集型产业。     

OUTPUT RISK ASPECTS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROP TECHNOLOGY IN SOUTH AFRICA

In this paper, it is argued that investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) are closely linked to complementary innovations and are most productive in firms with experience from earlier innovations. In the empirical analysis based on firm-level panel data covering the period 1994–1999, system GMM estimates for an extended production function framework reveal significant productivity effects of ICT in the German service sector. Moreover, there is strong support for the hypothesis that experience gained from past process innovations makes ICT capital more productive but does not affect the productivity of other capital goods.     

珠三角地区产业结构升级与区域经济发展——基于东莞市产业结构升级的实证研究

文章借鉴Feder非均衡模型的思想,构建了一个反映工业发展对经济发展影响的非均衡计量经济模型。模型分析表明,工业部门比非工业部门边际生产率更高,工业部门对非工业部门存在正的外部性,将更多的资本、人力等资源配置到工业部门有利于提高整个经济的生产率水平,推进产业结构升级,促进经济增长。     

Human Capital and Growth Cycles

This paper studies the dynamic interaction between human capital accumulation and economic growth. Capital market imperfections and an indivisibility in human capital investment prevent poor agents from accumulating skills, the acquisition of which positively affects technological progress. More productive technologies in turn require more sophisticated qualification and involve higher training costs. The equilibrium dynamics can be characterized by the joint evolution of productivity growth, the schooling costs, and the income distribution. Under our assumptions, individual incomes follow a non-linear Markov chain. This non-linearity generates endogenous fluctuations of schooling activities and the rate at which productivity improvements occur. We thank an anonymous referee for many helpful suggestions. Support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grant KA1519/2-2 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Sources of productivity growth: an empirical analysis with German sectoral data

Many theoretical analyses of the sources of economic growth focus on knowledge spillovers and scale economies to explain growth endogenously. The contribution of this paper is to shed some light on these arguments by an empirical investigation based on a production function framework. Sectoral production functions are estimated with annual German data of 51 sectors from 1960–90. The estimates reveal that both a pure Solow growth model and a Solow model augmented with human capital cannot account for the observed productivity increases. The model should be extended by allowing for inter-industry spillovers and scale economies at the aggregate level, as well as for scale economies associated with human capital at the sectoral level. The business cycle affects observed productivity changes in the short run and in the long run.     

人工智能对制造企业是否存在“生产率悖论”

在新一轮科技变革和产业革命背景下,人工智能已深度融入国民经济各产业,成为产业发展的重要驱动力。人工智能能否促进制造企业生产率提升,已成为新时代中国制造业高质量发展的关键。利用2015—2017年中国A股制造业上市公司相关数据,实证检验人工智能对制造企业生产率的影响,构建基于结构方程的多重中介效应模型,分析制造企业应用人工智能技术影响生产率的内在机制及路径。研究发现,人工智能提升了制造企业生产率;市场份额对人工智能与制造企业生产率的关系有显著负向调节作用;人工智能通过劳动力数量、物质资本使用效率和技术创新产出3种中介变量显著促进企业生产率提升,并通过人力资本使用效率和技术创新投入抑制企业生产率提升。