Firm Organization,Technology And Performance: An Empirical Study ∗

The purpose of the study is to characterize different styles of work organization in French firms and their current changes and to link them to the use of specific technologies and to firms performance. The data which are used arc of two kinds: a labor force survey (1 470 blue collar) and a business survey (7 089 firms). We show that two main variables create differences among firms' organization devices: the intensity of communication within the workshop and the level of autonomy of workers (facing technological and hierarchical constraints). The use of advanced technologies and the skill of the labor force are positively linked to both organizational variables. Therefore. ‘Communicating organization’ and organizational innovation seem to aim at creating conditions for individual and collective learning on new technologies. They also enhance the ability of the firm to adapt to changing market conditions through technological innovation and inventory reduction, These views are supported by econometric estimation.     

Bank Efficiency and Macro-economic Factors: The Case of Developing Countries

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of macro-economic factors on bank efficiency of commercial banks in Asia, Middle East/North Africa, and Africa. To achieve the objective, the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) was used to simultaneously estimate the parameters of the stochastic frontier and the inefficiency model. The results show that the effect of macro-economic factors on bank efficiency differs across region. Cost inefficiency of the commercial banks in the Asian region is negatively related to the real gross domestic product per capita, credit to the private sector, and market concentration but is positively related to trade openness. Banks cost inefficiency in the Middle East/North Africa is negatively related to trade openness but is positively related to market concentration suggesting that banking market in this region should be more open to competition.     

Sensitivity analysis of efficiency rankings to distributional assumptions: applications to Japanese water utilities

This article examines the robustness of efficiency score rankings across four distributional assumptions for trans-log stochastic production-frontier models, using data from 1221 Japanese water utilities (for 2004 and 2005). One-sided error terms considered include the half-normal, truncated normal, exponential and gamma distributions. Results are compared for homoscedastic and doubly heteroscedastic models, where we also introduce a doubly heteroscedastic variable mean model, and examine the sensitivity of the nested models to a stronger heteroscedasticity correction for the one-sided error component. The results support three conclusions regarding the sensitivity of efficiency rankings to distributional assumptions. When four standard distributional assumptions are applied to a homoscedastic stochastic frontier model, the efficiency rankings are quite consistent. When those assumptions are applied to a doubly heteroscedastic stochastic frontier model, the efficiency rankings are consistent when proper and sufficient arguments for the variance functions are included in the model. When a more general model, like a variable mean model is estimated, efficiency rankings are quite sensitive to heteroscedasticity correction schemes.     

Innovation, international technological diffusion and the changing influence of R&D on productivity

This paper analyses the relationship between OECD countries'business sector total factor productivity and domestic and foreignR&D efforts during the period 1961-1991. A sensitivity analysisis performed by making use of alternate estimations of specificationsin growth terms and in level terms. The results are shown tobe robust. They show that the influence of international technologicaldiffusion is, on average, substantially stronger than that ofdomestic R&D. In the case of the large economies, however,the latter influence is found to be more important. A structuralstability analysis provides evidence of a decrease in the estimatesin the mid-1970s, without significant recovery afterwards. Variouslong-run supply effects appear to have contributed. The discontinuousnature of the reduction does indicate, however, that these werereinforced by macroeconomic disturbances at the demand side.     

Capitalism, profits and innovation in the new techno-economic paradigm

Innovative profits (of the kind conceptualized by Schumpeter) are today being increasingly created through international corporate networks for technological development. Such profits through innovation are encouraged by newer more flexible organizational forms, and further encouraged (unlike in the conventional perspective on profits and on the incentive to innovate) by knowledge flows between firms. Our empirical evidence, based on US patent data, shows that multinational companies are currently more likely to develop abroad technologies which are less science-based, and less dependent upon tacit knowledge. However, within the science-based industries firms may generate abroad some technologies which are heavily dependent on tacit knowledge, but normally in fields that lie outside their own core technological competencies. We find some evidence of a convergence in corporate technological diversification across large firms, facilitated by the now common spread in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) as an integrator of formerly separate technological systems. This has led smaller firms to diversify, but giant firms to consolidate activity around those technologies that have become most interrelated.     

External spillovers, internal spillovers and the geography of production and innovation

We consider a three-location duopoly model such that (i) firms choose production and innovation locations before (Bertrand) competition takes place and (ii) there are internal and external knowledge spillovers. We show: (1) agglomerations where firms earn negative profits may exist when there are both external and internal knowledge spillovers; (2) greater external spillovers do not necessarily favor agglomeration; (3) decreasing communication costs tend to favor agglomeration; (4) there are exactly two types of agglomeration equilibria: either both firms innovate in the agglomeration, or there is an innovator and an imitator; and (5) if there is a location where both firms produce, then innovation must take place in this location.     

农业部门劳动力再配置、农村非农化与中国农村经济增长

文章通过在二元经济增长模型中引入内生经济增长思想的基础上,构建了一个能够较好地对中国农村经济增长进行模拟和解释的理论模型.整个模型将中国农村经济增长划分为传统农业阶段、非农产业发展阶段与"反哺"阶段三个时间段,并着重分析了农业剩余的出现与非农产业的发展,这也是中国农村经济改革之所以成功最为重要的一段时期.文章最终认为,农村经济发展的最终目的应该是促进农业与非农产业的协调发展,以推进社会主义新农村建设、构建社会主义和谐社会.     

Full Likelihood Inference in Normal-Gamma Stochastic Frontier Models

The paper takes up inference in the stochastic frontier model with gamma distributed inefficiency terms, without restricting the gamma distribution to known integer values of its shape parameter (the Erlang form). The paper shows that Gibbs sampling with data augmentation can be used in a computationally efficient way to explore the posterior distribution of the model and conduct inference regarding parameters as well as functions of interest related to technical inefficiency.