Reference technology sets,Free Disposal Hulls and productivity decompositions

Diewert and Fox (2013) proposed decompositions of a Malmquist-type productivity index into explanatory factors, with a focus on extracting technical progress, technical efficiency change and returns to scale components. A major problem with their decompositions is that it may be difficult to determine the appropriate reference technologies. Using relatively unrestrictive regularity conditions, the paper develops a data envelopment type approach for decomposing productivity growth for a panel of production units into explanatory factors based on the Free Disposal Hull methods pioneered by Tulkens and his co-authors.     

Optimal tax perturbations

The paper considers an economy with H households, N+1 commodities and M fixed factors with commodity taxes and government expenditures on goods and services. The paper studies under what conditions (small) Pareto improving tax changes exist, i.e., tax changes which increase the utility of each household in the economy. The basic analytical technique used is just the usual comparative statics apparatus, except that duality theory is used in order to simplify the computations. The paper derives both the changes in prices and in real incomes that are induced by (small) changes in exogenous tax variables (differential real income balanced budget incidence analysis).     

New techniques in the measurement of multifactor productivity

This article outlines procedures for adjustment for characteristics of the production structure which are typically ignored in productivity growth computations but affect the correct valuation of inputs and outputs. There are many such characteristics, including changes in the terms of trade and fixity of factors, but only one appears to have much impact on productivity fluctuations: imperfect competition in output and input markets. To illustrate this, traditional and adjusted productivity growth indexes based on assumed markups are constructed for the U.S., Canadian and Japanese business sectors for comparison with each other and with other adjustments done in previous studies. The methodology is based on finding shadow values of all domestic and traded outputs and inputs to use to evaluate the contribution of each to profits. We find that evidence of markups suggests adjustments in traditional measures that are quite significant and which tend to smooth both cyclical and time trends in productivity growth.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through M. Denny.     

Fisher ideal output,input, and productivity indexes revisited

A productivity index for a firm is generally defined as an output index divided by an input index. The first part of the paper uses the test or axiomatic approach to index number theory in order to determine the appropriate functional form for the output and input indexes. It is found that the Fisher ideal index satisfies 21 reasonable tests and is uniquely characterized by a subset of these tests. In the remainder of the paper, the economic approach to productivity indexes introduced by Caves, Christensen, and Diewert is adopted and, again, a strong justification for the Fisher productivity index is provided.The editor of this paper was N.R. Adam.This research was supported by a Strategic Grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author is indebted to Shelley Hey for typing assistance.     

Sunk costs and the measurement of commercial property depreciation

Developments in property markets greatly influence economic growth, monetary policy, productivity measurement, inflation measurement and hence welfare payments to the disadvantaged. Property price bubbles often lead to financial crises; those experienced during the 20th century were often triggered by commercial property price movements. Yet property poses significant challenges for national accountants in producing key economic variables used in informing policy assessment and formulation. To address these challenges, this paper formalizes a framework for measuring prices and quantities of capital inputs for a commercial property. In particular, it addresses problems associated with obtaining separate estimates for the land and structure components of a property, a decomposition of property value that is important for the national accounts, productivity measurement and taxation. A key contribution is to address the problem of estimating structure depreciation taking into account the fixity of the structure. We find that structure depreciation is determined primarily by the cash flows that the property generates rather than physical deterioration of the building. Finally, we provide a framework for the determination of the optimal length of life for a structure.     

Identifying Outliers in Multi-Output Models

A firm may be different from other firms either in terms of the mix or scale of its input-output vector. This paper develops separate mix and scale measures of dissimilarity, and shows that these can be additively aggregated into a measure of absolute dissimilarity. The mix measure is particularly relevant in the context of frontier analysis since it will identify the firms that exert the most influence on the resulting efficiency scores.     

Index Number Theory Using Differences Rather Than Ratios

A bstract    Traditional index number theory decomposes a value ratio into the product of a price index times a quantity index. The price (quantity) index is interpreted as an aggregate price (quantity) ratio. The present paper takes an alternative approach to index number theory, started by Bennet and Montgomery in the 1920s, which decomposes a value difference into the sum of a price difference plus a quantity difference. Axiomatic and economic approaches to this alternative branch of index theory are considered in the present paper. The analysis presented has some relevance to accounting theory in which revenue, cost, or profit changes need to be decomposed into price quantity components or where standard or budgeted performance is compared with actual performance (variance analysis). The methodology presented in the paper is also relevant for consumer surplus analysis.     

The measurement of productivity in the nonmarket sector

In many sectors of the economy, governments either provide various services at no cost or at highly subsidized prices. Examples are the health, education and general government sectors. The System of National Accounts 1993 recommends valuing these nonmarket outputs at their costs of production but it does not give much guidance on exactly how to do this. In this paper, an explicit methodology is developed that enables one to construct these marginal cost prices. However, in the main text, an activity analysis approach is taken in order to simplify the analysis, so in particular, constant returns to scale, no substitution production functions for the specific activities in the nonmarket sector are assumed. It is shown that it is possible to obtain meaningful measures of Total Factor Productivity growth in this framework. An “Appendix” relaxes some of the restrictive assumptions that are used in the main text.     

The contributions of productivity, price changes and firm size to profitability

Sources of profit change for Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications firm, are examined. A new method allows for changes, in a firm’s profits to be broken down into separate effects due to productivity change, price changes, and growth in the firm’s size. This in turn allows us to calculate the distribution of the benefits of productivity improvements between consumers, labor, and shareholders. The results show that around half the benefits from Telstra’s productivity improvements from 1984 to 1994 were passed on to consumers in the form of real price reductions.

土地发展权价值研究

西方国家通过设置土地发展权有效地保护农业用地、公共活动空地和自然保护区.取得很好的经济、社会、生态效益.近年来,我国一些学者也开始研究土地发展权,但主要集中于土地发展权的归属、配置、流转,很少涉及土地发展权价值的研究.在市场经济条件下,价格作为市场配置资源的重要信号,对资源合理有效配置起着方向性作用.文章系统地论述了土地发展权的价值构成、价格影响因素及土地发展权价格形成机理,最后建立土地发展权价格测算方法.