A Comprehensive Approach to Measuring the Multidimensional Productivity Index: A Reiteration of Global Productivity Convergence

Abstract

The undeniable significance of production has prompted experts to explore further the competitive productivity of various nations across the globe. Despite the importance of global productivity competitiveness, prior studies have not included a comprehensive assessment of the multidimensional productivity index (MPI). Therefore, this study aims to achieve two objectives. First, it extends the scope of prior studies by integrating capital as an input alongside labor and energy consumption, based on 50 factors under 11 indices (including democracy, global competitiveness, and innovation index). Second, global competitive productivity convergence is reaffirmed and expanded. This study employed secondary panel data from 2007 to 2018, and 60,000 data points were obtained from 100 nations. The results reveal that the USA is the most productive country, followed by China, India, and Japan in the context of global competitive productivity. Regional productivity scores show that Asia has a superior productivity rank compared to Europe. However, Africa is performing worse than average. Unlike earlier studies, this study shows that macroeconomic, innovation and infrastructural variables mainly determine the MPI score. The main finding of this study is that there is no statistically significant difference in total factor productivity (TFP) among the developed, developing, and least developed countries. Also, there is no significant influence of regions or alliances on TFP across the countries, confirming the global convergence in competitive productivity. The novelty of this study is that certain statistical evidence accurately portrays global competitiveness in terms of productivity.