Changes In Labour Productivity Research Articles

OPTIMIZATION OF WAGE STRUCTURE AND LIMITS OF ABOVE-TARIFF PAYMENTS IN KAZAKHSTAN

The policy of forming the wage system is largely determined by the economic situation in the country, the amount of inflation caused by the growth of prices for goods and services. The article substantiates the relationship between the size of real wages and economic growth caused by changes in labor productivity, as the main indicator determining the long-term standard of living. In the structure of the wage fund, a special place is occupied by above-tariff payments, which carry the function of regulating the basic wage. Their amount depends on the profession, industry and regional characteristics. Therefore, the assessment of above-tariff payments in distribution relations is objectively conditioned and significant. The following results were obtained during the study: - in general, for all types of economic activity, the share of above-tariff payments amounted to 27-30% of the wage fund. This means that 1/3 of wages is formed to a greater extent subjectively, i.e. decent wages are compensated by incentive payments; - in the regions of Kazakhstan, the threshold of payment at the tariff, which should be constant and ensure a decent life without above-tariff payments, is not ensured; - the variable part of wages (payments) should be used only when stimulating the achievement of exceptional results, and not become a tool for maintaining wages at the appropriate level.

Assessing the Impact of Climate Comfort on Labor Productivity in Hydropower Engineering Construction in Southwest China

Labor productivity exerts a significant influence on the construction cycle and investment in hydropower projects. Consequently, it is a crucial factor in the estimation of the cost of hydropower project construction. The mechanisms that are modulated by subjective factors have been extensively studied. However, the assessment of labor productivity in objective environments with regular changes is usually considered using a single factor, especially in special environments where the influence of environmental factors is of greater concern. As the most extensive region of China’s water-energy resources, the Southwest region has a lengthy tradition of using altitude or oxygen as an inherent criterion for the assessment of labor productivity. However, the applicability of inherent standards is limited. Therefore, we tried to assess the spatial and temporal changes in labor productivity based on the changes in meteorological conditions in Southwest China, employing climate comfort indicators in this study. The result identified five distinct regions of climate change in Southwest China (R-I to R-V). In particular, there is minimal variation in labor productivity as assessed by climate comfort indicators and the elevation between R-I and R-II. R-III and R-IV are influenced by oxygen, temperature, and humidity, while R-V is affected by a multitude of factors. Our findings indicate that temporal and spatial variations in meteorological conditions can result in up to a threefold difference in productivity at the same altitude in different regions. Importantly, our study provides valuable theoretical insights for engineering project management. In particular, it can be concluded that altitude is not a reliable indicator for evaluating labor productivity in high-altitude construction.

Impact of next-generation Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) on international relations

The new generation of artificial intelligence technologies occurrence represented by ChatGPT is the beginning of the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) era. In contrast to the impact of weak AI technologies on international relations discussed in the previous era, AGI is no longer just a tool in the traditional sense. The human-computer integration facilitated by AGI technology will rapidly and deeply penetrate into all areas of social policy and economy. It also may change the mode of social production and economic development, influence international relations and geopolitics by transforming the comprehensive state capacity, and simultaneously force new challenges in global governance. The acknowledgement of a new generation of AGI technological qualitative changes’ impact on future changes in international relations is no longer the fantasy; the underlying AGI changes in labour productivity will certainly lead to a disruptive reconfiguration of future international relations.

Efficiency and productivity gains of robotic surgery: The case of the English National Health Service.

This paper examines the effect of new medical technology (robotic surgery) on efficiency gains and productivity changes for surgical treatment in patients with prostate cancer from the perspective of a public health sector organization. In particular, we consider three interrelated surgical technologies within the English National Health System: robotic, laparoscopic and open radical prostatectomy. Robotic and laparoscopic techniques are minimally invasive procedures with similar clinical benefits. While the clinical benefits in adopting robotic surgery over laparoscopic intervention are unproven, it requires a high initial investment cost and carries high on-going maintenance costs. Using data from Hospital Episode Statistics for the period 2000-2018, we observe growing volumes of prostatectomies over time, mostly driven by an increase in robotic-assisted surgeries, and further analyze whether hospital providers that adopted a robot see improved measures of throughput. We then quantify changes in total factor and labor productivity arising from the use of this technology. We examine the impact of robotic adoption on efficiency gains employing a staggered difference-in-difference estimator and find evidence of a 50% reduction in length of stay (LoS), 49% decrease in post-LoS and 44% and 46% decrease in postoperative visits after 1year and 2years, respectively. Productivity analysis shows the growth in radical prostatectomy volume is sustained with a relatively stable number of urology surgeons. The robotic technique increases total production at the hospital level between 21% and 26%, coupled with a 29% improvement in labor productivity. These benefits lend some, but not overwhelming support for the large-scale hospital investments in such costly technology.

Analyzing the energy metabolism of the automotive industry to study the differences found in this sector across EU countries

The automotive industry plays a key economic and political role in developed countries due to its contribution to exports, employment and revenues. Fragmentation of production and offshoring have distributed manufacturing stages among EU national automotive industries. An energy metabolic perspective allows us to explain differences in performance determined by the expression of different functions and the weight within the national economy. This paper analyses the Motor vehicles industry (MVI) and its sub-sectors in 8 EU countries in 2018 visualizing data in end-use matrixes, a Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) tool. We study the relation over energy carriers (electricity, and thermal energy), GHG emissions, working time, and value added at three different scales: the whole national economy, the MVI sector, and the subsectors within MVI. Through this multi-scale and multi-dimensional characterisation, we cluster the countries according to their functional specialization in (i) manufacturing intermediate parts and modules, (ii) final assembly of vehicles, and (iii) management and engineering design. This representation provides an integrated overview of this industry in relation to its core-periphery dynamics in the spatial division of labour. Additionaly, we provide new insights to labor productivity, efficiency, decoupling and structural changes for sustainability.

Development of a New Strategic Framework for Improving the Productivity Benchmarking Practices in Road Project Operations

Primarily, this study highlights the knowledge gaps in the field for implementing systematic techniques to benchmark and improve productivity levels of critical construction activities in road projects. Accordingly, the study aims to develop a new strategic framework that can enhance the benchmarking practices related to the assessment of labour productivity compared to labour performance with the use of potential apprenticeship tools and systems in road construction operations. A series of literature reviews and expert consultations were conducted to build a new framework with the collection of potential models/tools/systems related to labour training, performance evaluation and productivity measures. The mechanism associated with the developed framework was systematically executed in nine road construction projects in Sri Lanka. The findings show the precise patterns of significant changes in labour productivity and performance index values, which have inspired new approaches in the planning procedures for construction projects. The results assure that proposed mechanisms can be applied with reliable, generalisable and sustainable aspects in their use. The study offers a fresh road map with constructive approaches for project managers, planners and engineers to raise the bar for benchmarking labour productivity and performance levels across a wide range of tasks. The results of the study will have considerable impacts on how other emerging countries and enterprises need to operate their workflows to achieve productivity-related benefits in the future circumstances.

The Neolithic Revolution in the Middle East: A survey and speculation article for the Economic History Review

AbstractThis paper investigates the causes and the consequences of the emergence of agriculture in the Middle East. Agriculture has emerged in many parts of the world since the end of the last Ice Age about 15 000 years ago. The paper first surveys the Palaeolithic Period to understand why agriculture did not emerge earlier. Then the paper considers the processes that led to the emergence of agriculture in the Middle East. The question is approached as a problem in economic history, and the archaeological record is understood in terms of changes in labour productivity, as measured by calories produced per hour of work, and in the size of the associated agricultural surplus (the difference between the calories produced by a food procurement system and the calories required to sustain the people trying to support themselves with that system). The shift from foraging to the cultivation of wild seeds and the later impact of the emergence of domestic seed and improvements in tool design are assessed in this framework. It is also used to analyse the impact of agriculture on human wellbeing, the origin of manufacturing (e.g. pottery), and the emergence of inequality, states, and warfare.

Inequality and technological change

We study how technological change affects between‐ and within‐education‐group inequality in the United States. We develop a model with heterogeneous workers and firms in which the demand for skills is characterized by firms' recruiting behavior. We use the model to quantify the relative contribution of two types of technological change that affect the relative demand for skilled labor: technological change in firm‐specific productivity and technological change in labor productivity. We find that technological change in labor productivity, in the form of higher returns to skill in production, is the main driver of the increase in between‐ and within‐group inequality. Technological change in firm productivity, in the form of higher firm productivity dispersion, plays a less important role in explaining rising inequality, except for the increase in within‐group inequality for workers without a college degree.

Влияние отраслевой структуры на динамику производительности труда в экономике США

The importance of labor productivity growth increases in the context of economic regionalization, which requires an economy-wide restructuring. In the United States of America, which continues its policy of reindustrial development, protectionism, and the suppression of competing countries by all means, the role of the structural factor in the dynamics of labor productivity is not uniform. The paper presents a theoretical analysis and methodological possibility of calculating the relationship between such economic categories and processes as labor productivity and its decline in the US economy, on the one hand, and structural changes in the American economy, on the other hand. Based on the use of the index method with the conversion of material resources into labor costs, an attempt was made to empirically identify the different impacts of specific industries (sectors) of the US economy on changes in labor productivity. The chronological period for calculating the system of necessary indices takes into account 2005 as the base year used for comparison with 2022. The results obtained indicate the beginning of a “reindustrial turn” in the US economy, which created the basis for the gradual recovery of the lost growth rates of labor productivity, together with the sector of information and communication services. It is noted that the movement of workers with relatively low qualifications from the manufacturing sectors of the American economy to the service sector, along with an increase in working hours, contributes to a decrease in labor productivity in a number of service industries. An increase in the role of the structural factor in the dynamics of labor productivity in those industries that most actively respond to the possibility of reducing labor costs in the context of growing technologization of economic activity is revealed. The conclusion is made about the information-industrial orientation of the structural changes observed in the United States over the period under study, which provides for a structural transformation of the labor market in the direction of increasing the efficiency of labor costs per unit of working time.

Does the Impact of the Foreign Direct Investment on Labor Productivity Change Depending on Productive Capacity?

Does the Impact of the Foreign Direct Investment on Labor Productivity Change Depending on Productive Capacity?

Personnel motivation management in the strategic management system of an enterprise

In the paper, motivation management is considered through the prism of strategic personnel management, which is an important component of enterprise development. The overall strategy of an enterprise is mainly presented in the form of a long-term program of actions to implement the use and development of the organization’s available resources, but not always when describing a strategy, all its important elements are taken into account. Staff turnover, inconsistencies in the processes of hiring high-level specialists and low staff involvement are also the result of inadequate attention to the development of personnel motivation management policies, which accordingly hinders the development of an enterprise. The purpose of the paper is to substantiate the importance of motivation management in the strategic management system and develop scientific and methodological recommendations for improving the personnel motivation system as an effective tool to ensure the achievement of a company’s strategic goals. The result of the study was the definition of the main stages of the process of strategic personnel motivation management, namely: monitoring of motivation, determination of trends in changes in labor productivity from the introduction of new motivation systems; calculation of economic benefits from the implementation of employee motivation practices. The constructed logical-structural diagram of employee motivation management in the strategic management system, combined with periodic monitoring of the current employee motivation, will enhance the effectiveness of the development and implementation of both the motivation management strategy and the overall strategy of an enterprise.

KEY ASPECTS OF THE ANALYSIS OF LABOUR RESOURCES-BASED RETURN AND LABOUR COSTS-BASED RETURN OF THE ENTERPRISE IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY SITUATION

The issue of the effective use of workforce is relevant at all phases and stages of each enterprise’s development. The importance and relevance of this issue are even greater in the context of high inflation rate in the country and the impact of different crises – health, economic, price, energy, social, and now the military crisis, due to the conflict and the war in the vicinity of the Bulgarian frontier.The first object of study in this publication is the indicator of labour resources-based return, which shows the final effective use of the enterprise’s workforce. This indicator is analysed as a separate object of the analysis to identify the strength and direction of direct factors that affect its dynamic. These factors are as follows:1. changes in the labour productivity and2. changes in the sales return.The second object of study refers to the labour costs-based return indicator, which characterises the final effectiveness of costs incurred by the enterprise for the functioning of the workforce it has hired, and namely, costs for staff salaries and social security. This indicator is also analysed as a separate object of the analysis. It identifies the strength and direction of direct factors’ impact on the dynamics of this indicator. These factors are as follows:1. changes in the labour productivity;2. changes in the average wages per staff member;3. changes in the average social security costs per staff member; and4. changes in the sales return.Their objectively existing correlation is a prerequisite for correlating these two objects.The subject matter of this publication covers the methodological aspects of the analysis of labour resources-based return and the analysis of labour costs-based return.The author’s objective is to suggest approved methodologies for analysis of the labour resources-based return and for analysis of labour costs-based return, which are applicable to and useful for the business practice. This publication suggests guidelines for deeper analysis methodologies by correlating the factors affecting the change of the annual labour productivity with the factors affecting the return calculated both on the basis of labour resources and on the basis of labour costs as well. Such correlation may result in objective symbiosis among the use of working time, efficient use of manpower (labour productivity) and labour resources-based and labour costs-based return.

Does Employee Happiness Have an Impact on Productivity?

This paper provides evidence from a natural experiment on the relationship between positive affect and productivity. We link highly detailed administrative data on the behaviors and performance of all telesales workers at a large telecommunications company with survey reports of employee happiness that we collected on a weekly basis. We use variation in worker mood arising from visual exposure to weather—the interaction between call center architecture and outdoor weather conditions—to provide a quasi-experimental test of the effect of happiness on productivity. We find evidence of a positive impact on sales performance, which is driven by changes in labor productivity—largely through workers converting more calls into sales and to a lesser extent by making more calls per hour and adhering more closely to their schedule. We find no evidence in our setting of effects on measures of high-frequency labor supply such as attendance and break-taking. This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4766 .

Evaluation of Factors of Design Change, Material Availability and Labor Productivity Against Cost Performance on Office Building Projects

Good cost performance will result in profit margins for the company, but on the contrary, poor cost performance will certainly result in cost overruns. And this is often and even always the case with every project, both in construction projects and office building projects. Several factors can influence the decline in cost performance so that there is a cost overrun, such as design changes, material availability, work improvements, poor labor relations, incomplete project documents, increase in material prices, labor, equipment, project finances, and project implementation time. With the various causes of decreased cost performance, this research will limit the analysis of factors such as changes in design, material availability and labor productivity, which are indeed very frequent in construction projects, especially in office building projects. Office building projects are not as large as high-rise construction projects or other civil projects, but in terms of the complexity of detailed types of work, it is often a boomerang for cost overruns. This study used a statistical analysis approach using an SPSS device based on questionnaire data for implementing contractors in Jakarta.

Informality and Competition

Based upon the changes of labor productivity for the economy decomposed by sectors and activities, this paper proposes three hypotheses on the relationship between the informal sector and competition for Peruvian economy in the period 2007-2018. The first one postulates that there might exist product market segmentation between formal and informal firms. The second postulates that the effects of the PTAs on the changes of labor productivity in activities and sectors have been diverse and unclear. The last and third hypothesis postulates that labor productivity changes in Peru and its within and reallocation components have been associated with the fluctuations and the rate of growth of the GDP and the terms of trade. These associations are consistent with the primary- export structure of the Peruvian economy.

Labor productivity in the agriculture, structural shifts and economic growth in the Central and Eastern European countries

Purpose. In our article, we assess the scope and directions of changes in agricultural labor productivity compared to other sectors of the economy.
 Methodology / approach. For our survey we choose 15 countries: (і) EU countries – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well (іі) post-Soviet European countries – Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, russia and also (ііі) Albania for period 1996–2019. We use an empirical methodology designed to analyze structural decomposition of labor productivity into the growth effect within the sector and structural dynamic and static effects, often called ‘shift-share analysis’. We analyze process of convergence of sectoral labor productivity and its impact on economic growth.
 Results. Labor productivity grows in the agricultural sector of the economy at the fastest rate, on average by almost 12 % per year. The growth effects within the industry takes a dominant position in all sectors of the economy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and its share is on average 88.5 %, and the structural effects are as follows: the dynamic effect is almost 1%, the static effect is 10.4 %. We have confirmed that the agricultural sector is gaining weight in the economic growth of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the influence of the service sector is increasing, although together they do not exceed the influence of the growth of value added in industry.
 Originality / scientific novelty. For the first time we have used the methodology of decomposition of labor productivity growth into three effects: growth, dynamic and static ones for the period before the financial crisis 2008 and after the crisis for 15 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using panel GLS estimator with fixed effects we estimate the impact of labor productivity on economic growth in different sectors for 1991–2020 period. 
 Practical value / implications. The main results of the study can be used for elaboration of effective economic policy in agriculture development in Central and Eastern European countries; for identification of structural shifts in labor productivity in different sectors of the economy before and after the financial crisis; for estimation of the level of convergence between different sectors of the economy; determining main factors of increasing value added in agriculture in Ukraine and other Central and Eastern European countries; implementation structural changes in economy in the period of crisis.

The Effect of foreign direct investment on structural change in developing countries: an examination of the labor productivity dimension

Developing countries require overall labor productivity to sustain their economic growth. Overall labor productivity, on the other hand, cannot be achieved without structural change. Because developing countries lack sufficient resources, foreign direct investment (FDI) is recommended for them to realize structural change. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to estimate the effect of FDI on the structural change in labor productivity in developing countries from 1990 to 2018 using Driscoll and Kraay’s estimation. The study found that foreign direct investment boosts overall labor productivity by facilitating “structural change” and improving “within-sector” labor productivity. Furthermore, variables such as export, population size, domestic capital, human capital, and the usage of chemical fertilizer all have a positive and significant effect on labor productivity. On the contrary, government expenditure, the development of infrastructure, and the utilization of large areas of land have all been discovered to have a negative effect on labor productivity. However, per capita income has a negligible effect on it. Therefore, developing countries should not only pay attention to the quantity of FDI but also to its quality by putting an emphasis on FDI in the manufacturing sector and export-based FDI. Additionally, increasing domestic capital through the mobilization of domestic savings and strengthening the use of technology, such as chemical fertilizer, may be essential policy directions to increase labor productivity.

Drivers of productivity change in global value chains: Reallocation vs. innovation

We investigate the role of technological improvement and market share reallocation in determining global changes in sectoral labor productivity. Contrary to previous work that neglects dependencies between suppliers in global value chains, we account for input linkages that impact both channels of productivity improvement. Using sector-level data from the World Input–Output Database, we show that reallocation between countries has a larger effect on productivity change than innovation within countries.

Does Premature Deindustrialisation Stall Growth? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Structural transformation (ST) accelerates growth when labour transition occurs from low-productivity to high-productivity sectors. However, evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) indicates that the manufacturing sector is not generating enough employment opportunities and that labour absorption is primarily occurring in low-productivity service activities—a process known as premature deindustrialisation that hinders the growth-enhancing effect of ST. This article contributes by quantifying the effect of labour movement across sectors and estimating its impact on growth in the region. We apply the Shapley decomposition technique to extract the effect of ST on change in labour productivity. Next, by using a panel ARDL framework, we analyse the impact of ST on long-run economic growth for 12 middle-income economies from SSA for the period 1992–2017. Our findings suggest that in the long-run, ST towards low productivity service activities is having a growth-depressing effect on these economies. Although middle-income African economies have adopted several policy initiatives to reverse the deindustrialisation trend, our findings show that these have not (so far) generated economic growth. Further efforts are needed in these countries to foster the investment climate, infrastructure, financial sector, skills and regional integration needed for labour transition towards high productivity sectors.

Extraordinary economy policies amid Covid-19 pandemic crisis: economic growth, labour productivity and elasticity of substitution

Purpose- This study investigates current financial, fiscal and monetary policies implemented to enhance growth rate in developed economies. First main theoretical findings of neoclassical growth theory are reconsidered. Second, current economy policies from the perspectives of Central banks and Treasury departments are analyzed. Finally, the relationship between these two is investigated and whether the policies are adequate to theoretical findings is examined. Methodology- From the perspective of descriptive statistics, first; time evlotion of labor's share of output from 1947Q1 through 2016Q3 is analyzed. Second, time evolution of percentage change in labor productivity with respect to real hourly compensation are considered from 1948Q1 through 2022Q1. In addition, to identify the accelerating gap between labor productivity and compensation over recent decades, annual index levels from 1973 to 2022 for labor productivity with respect to real hourly compensation are taken into account. Third, the phase-space representation of rate of real growth for output per capita is developed. In methodological perspective, both time-space and phase-space analyses on output per capita, labor productivity and labor compensation clear the way to establish a theoretical model, which explains the interaction between these variables based on constant elasticity of substitution production function. Findings- For case of elasticity of substitution lower-than-unity, the relationship between rate of real growth for marginal productivity and average productivity of labor is obtained and is used to enlighten current U.S. monetary and fiscal policy implementations. Conclusion- The results demonstrate that amid Covid-19 pandemics, U.S. fiscal policy and monetary policy do not optimally match and hence the fiscal policy should be calibrated. U.S. fiscal policy increased minimum wages and U.S. monetary policy addressed tighter and perfectly competitive labor market. These two policies do not coincide in terms of efficiency. In other words, simultaneous application of these two policies will not give desired compound result. Keywords: Economic growth, labor productivity, fiscal policy, labor compensation, monetary policy JEL Codes: E62, O40, O41