Exports, Margins and Productivity Growth: With an Application to the Canadian Softwood Lumber Industry

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the allocative and dynamic efficiency of the Canadian softwood lumber industry by testing for the existence of price-cost margins and decomposing rates of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. A dynamic model of multiple output production and investment is developed in which output is sold domestically and exported. Price-cost margins are parametrized and estimated. The empirical results show that prices are equated to short-run marginal costs in domestic and export markets. TFP growth is decomposed into four elements; technological change, returns to sale, price-cost margins and capital adjustment. The empirical results show that, for the Canadian softwood lumber industry, TFP growth averaged 3 percent per year and the major contributing element was the rate of technological change. Copyright 1994 by MIT Press.