Policy reforms and productivity differences in US food manufacturing: The case of meat, dairy, and sugar plants

Abstract

Abstract This paper provides some empirical evidence of plant-level productivity growth dispersion in the US meat, dairy, sugar, and confectionery products industries and explores the government policy influences on the differences in productivity dispersion across industries. Different than the meat products industry, the dairy, sugar, and confectionery products industries enjoy government policy protection for prices of the principal raw commodity. These industries also have relatively small productivity dispersion between the best and the poorest performing plants over the study period.