Changes In Labour Productivity Research Articles

The impact of climate change on agricultural labour productivity: implications for human mobility and poverty

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Working in hot or cold environments causes discomfort, fatigue, and cognitive impairment, raising the risk for health complications. The present study developed a new model to estimate the impact of ambient conditions on labour productivity based on field data and applied this model to predict the welfare implications of climate change by estimating the labour productivity change between the years 2000 and 2040. METHODS: In total, we monitored 1,260 hours of work performed by 194 (men=123; women=71) experienced and acclimatized agriculture workers from 10 nationalities. Time-motion analysis using video recordings was used to extract detailed information on each worker’s activities during their work shift. Sine orthogonal distance regression was used to generate the labor loss functions for WBGT and air temperature. Using this model, we projected the welfare implications across the globe of climate change by estimating the labour productivity change between the years 2000 and 2040, using an extended unified general equilibrium framework combining labour mobility and trade interactions between locations. RESULTS: Our findings reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship with the highest labour productivity observed at 15 °C WBGT or ambient temperature (R2 0.95-0.98). By applying this model to project global welfare implications, we found that the ongoing climate change is expected to impair agricultural labour productivity, promoting significant labour mobility and wealth redistribution across the globe. In contrast to cold regions, which are projected to have average gains up to 6.3%, regions located close to the equator, where poverty is widespread, will face average losses up to 1.2% in productivity and wealth. CONCLUSIONS: Our projections show larger labour productivity losses in countries where poverty is widespread and the economy is heavily dependent on the agricultural sector. This creates concerns over whether the 1st Sustainable Development Goal involving eradication of poverty can be achieved by 2030.

The Effect of Structural Change on Labor Productivity Growth and Employment in the Philippines

Philippines is considered one of the fastest developing economies because of the growing service sector. This growth brought a significant change in the economic structure of the country which previously relied on the agricultural sector. This paper conducted a study about the significant impact of structural change on labor productivity growth and employment. The paper localized the decomposition analysis used in literatures to extract the share of “within” sector and “structural change” to total changes in labor productivity in the Philippines from 2004-2018, and Applied Pooled Least Square, to obtain the impact of structural change to labor productivity growth and employment. Based on Durbin-Watson test results, both Panel Regression Equation and Seemingly Unrelated Equation were utilized because there is no contemporaneous autocorrelation found in Pooled Least Square. Using Breusch-Pagan LM Test, Panel Regression is deemed more appropriate than Seemingly Unrelated Regression. Furthermore, the decomposition analysis showed that higher share of service sector in employment makes the contribution of “structural change” lesser to labor productivity growth due to labor market that becomes less flexible as service sector dominates the labor market because of higher skillsets needed by the sector. The regression analysis showed that structural change is a significant determinant of employment and labor productivity; structural change has a positive relationship to labor productivity due to the transfer of labor to high-productivity sector; and structural change has a negative relationship to employment because the employment brought by the structural change cannot be absorbed by the labor force because of skills mismatch.

Economy 4.0: employment effects by occupation, industry, and gender

The aim of this study is to investigate how the diffusion of the new digital technologies (Economy 4.0-technologies) affects the magnitude and composition of employment in Austria. For this purpose, an input–output framework is adopted taking into account direct as well as indirect effects of the new technologies by industry, occupation and gender. These employment effects are estimated as the difference between a base economy (as represented by a recent Austrian input–output table) and an economy after a 10-year transformation period with the introduction of new production technologies and development of new products for final demand. Based on substitution potentials estimated on detailed occupational level available from previous research, we model the changes in labour productivity. Combining two different scenarios of labour productivity change with two different assumptions about collective wage bargaining outcomes gives us four possible scenarios of macroeconomic paths of Economy 4.0. The results show that due to Economy 4.0 during the next 10 years job displacement will probably be greater than job creation and aggregate employment will decline by 0.80–4.81% relative to total present employment. Furthermore, the results indicate that occupations gaining in employment are highly skilled while the occupations losing in employment are medium-skilled. Also, female workers are adversely affected in terms of employment.

Attribution of Changes in Vietnam’s Labor Productivity

This study examines the change in labor productivity in Vietnam by means of a Fisher index decomposition and attribution analysis. The results can be summarized as follows. First, the aggregate labor productivity is decomposed into pure labor productivity and structural change from 2007 to 2019. All of the aggregate labor productivity, pure labor productivity, structural change, and interaction terms have increased by 69.83%, 36.74%, 24.20%, and 8.89%, respectively. Second, the percentage change in labor productivity is attributed to 20 sub-industries by pure labor productivity and structural change. The sum of the multi-period attribution of pure labor productivity and structural change shows that the manufacturing industry positively dominates (15.84%) and plays a key role in economic development. The positive pure labor productivity and structural change in the manufacturing industry imply that the structural bonus hypothesis does hold in the industry. The findings also indicate that pure labor productivity, especially in the service industry, should be improved to sustain economic growth.

Uneven Development of the Spatial Economy of the Russian Federation and Differentiation of Growth Factors: Period 2016–2019

The issues of spatial differences in the level of socio-economic development of Russian macroregions, are discusses in the article. Authors analyze the causes and trends of changes in the spatial structure of macroeconomic indicators by federal districts and evaluate the main factors of regional growth and the potential for further development of the federal districts of the Russian Federation. The object of the study is the spatial economy of Russia in the period 2016–2019, both in the context of federal districts and in the context of the European and Asian parts. The European part of the Russian Federation includes the Central Federal District, the Northwestern Federal District, the Southern Federal District, the Northwestern Federal District, the Volga Federal District and the Ural Federal District without the Tyumen Region. The Asian part of the Russian Federation consists of the Tyumen region, the Siberian Federal District and the Far Eastern Federal District. The main goal of this work is to analyze the growth factors of Russian regions in the period 2016–2019. The research tools include methods for factorial decomposition of increments into quantitative and qualitative features, methods for analyzing structural changes. The paper shows the impact of price and volume changes on GRP growth, the impact of changes in the number of employees and total labor productivity on volume growth, the impact of changes in sectoral labor productivity and the structure of employees on the growth of total labor productivity. The paper also reflects the reasons for the uneven spatial development of the country and presents the contributions of industries to regional growth.

Revisiting the optimal inflation rate with downward nominal wage rigidity: The role of heterogeneity

In this paper, I study the optimal inflation rate in a sticky price economy where workers are heterogeneous in labor productivity and wage changes are subject to asymmetric adjustment costs. The model calibrated to U.S. micro wage data implies downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR). The optimal inflation rate is substantially higher than stated in the literature in the presence of worker heterogeneity. A key to understanding the result is that DNWR causes a cross-sectional misallocation of labor as well as inefficient aggregate dynamics, enlarging the “grease the wheels” effect of inflation.

Improvement of Crop Production Planning in Ukraine Using the Cobb-Douglas Production Function

The relevance of the study is conditioned by the need to improve the process of planning the crop production by agricultural enterprises of Ukraine through the construction of a functional relationship between the results of production activities of enterprises and the factors that determine these results. The purpose of the study is to improve the process of planning crop production by agricultural enterprises of Ukraine through the development of an econometric model in the form of a Cobb-Douglas production function. To model the processes of crop production, it is proposed to use the Cobb-Douglas production function, which describes the dependence of the crop production index on the indices of agricultural land acreage and labour productivity. Based on statistical information for 1996-2020, unknown parameters of the Cobb-Douglas production function were found by regression analysis. The high quality of the constructed model is substantiated. High predictive properties of the model are proved. To analyse the efficiency of resource use in crop production by agricultural enterprises, the coefficients of average, marginal products of labour and capital are calculated. The sensitivity of crop production to changes in crop areas and labour productivity is investigated. It is determined that if the index of agricultural areas is increased by 1%, the index of crop production will increase by 0.77%; and if the index of labour productivity is increased by 1%, the index of crop production will increase by 0.81%. An increasing return on the scale of resources spent is revealed, which indicates an increase in production volumes with an increase in the volume of resources in the crop production industry.

Zmiany produktywności w okresie kryzysu COVID-19 w świetle Schumpeterowskiej koncepcji kreatywnej destrukcji

Purpose – The aim of the article is to analyse changes in labour productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction and the work of economists on the role of innovation and market selection during economic crises. Research method – In the theoretical part of the article the method of deduction was used. In the empirical layer, econometric methods (AR, ARDL models) and the evometrics were used. Results – Changes in labour productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic in an economy devoid of adaptive innovations would be subject to mechanisms of simple destruction, leading to its stagnation in the long run. Originality /value /implications /recommendations – The concept of “destruction which brings creation” provides an alternative theoretical framework for interpreting the productivity changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, opening up a promising avenue for studying the behaviour of economic systems in abnormal conditions. According to our concept, state intervention aimed at limiting the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (lockdown) triggers innovative adaptation activities of entities leading to the transformation of processes typical for simple destruction into destruction which brings creation. In the context of our concept, a policy of promoting innovation already during the COVID-19 crisis is a necessary condition, and the inclusion of the efficiency criterion in state aid is a sufficient condition for initiating post-crisis growth.

Structural changes in labor productivity

Structural changes in labor productivity

ПРОСТРАНСТВЕННО-ВРЕМЕННЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ ПРОИЗВОДИТЕЛЬНОСТИ ТРУДА

Labor productivity is one of the main indicators of production efficiency, the rate of change in labor productivity reflects the macroeconomic development of the territory, the state. The problem of increasing labor productivity in the current difficult conditions of the functioning of the world economy is relevant. Modern trends, changes, structural transformations in the economy, in society, make their own adjustments to the already developed models of labor productivity, to theoretical laws, patterns, and existing relationships. The article discusses some aspects of the analysis of labor productivity, built dynamic and spatial models. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of labor productivity in agriculture as an industry that in modern conditions is important for ensuring the sustainable development of the country and the well-being of the population. The research methodology is represented by a system of methods. At the first stage, a study was made of the time series of indices of real wages of employees of organizations and labor productivity. In modern research, the issues of the relationship between productivity and wages are not sufficiently covered. This is due to the emergence of many other factors affecting the efficiency of production (digitalization of the economy, the use of digital technologies in production, the political environment). Meanwhile, the issues of increasing the efficiency of the use of labor force and the corresponding decent level of wages are currently of particular relevance. At the second stage of the study, labor productivity was assessed through the rate of change in the share of wages in the gross domestic product. At the third stage of the study, an applied correlation-regression model of the dependence of the level of labor productivity in agriculture on factors was built. Modeling showed that labor productivity in agriculture in the regions of the Russian Federation today depends to a greater extent on the level of technical equipment of the industry, on the efficiency of crop cultivation. The economic links between the level of productivity and wages have been disrupted. There is a certain reserve for increasing labor productivity by motivating employees. The successful development of agricultural production lies in the plane of innovation, digital technologies, attracting investments, increasing the level of interest of those employed in the results of labor, and the production of quality products.

Estimating the role of labor resources reallocation between sectors on the growth of aggregate labor productivity in the Russian economy

Relevance. Economic growth can be achieved in two different ways: through technological improvements and reallocation of market shares from less to more productive units. Despite the significant research literature on innovation in Russia, the literature on market selection, especially at the sectoral level, is relatively scarce. This is the research gap that this study aims to address. Research objective. The article assesses how labor resource reallocation between sectors has influenced the dynamics of aggregate labor productivity in the Russian economy over the past two decades. Data and methods. For this purpose, the growth of aggregate labor productivity was decomposed into the growth of productivity within the sectors themselves and the reallocation of labor resources between them. This allowed us to conduct a quantitative estimation of the role of market selection at the sectoral level. For our study, we used data from Rosstat (from 2002 to 2018) and the World Input-Output Database (from 2000 to 2014). Results. For Rosstat data, the ratio of the effect of changes in labor productivity and labor resource reallocation by sector on total labor productivity over the period was 0.71/0.29, and for WIOD data it was 0.44/0.56. This indicates that labor resources are more likely to be reallocated to related sectors (e.g. between manufacturing industries). Conclusions. The results suggest that there is competitive market selection at the sectoral level and that labor has generally been reallocated to more productive sectors of the economy, contributing significantly to the growth of aggregate productivity in the economy. Our study shows the sectors of the economy where this reallocation has taken place, which may help to determine where this process is successful and where it needs additional stimulation.

Link between tangible investment rate and labour productivity in the European manufacturing industry

This paper analyses the link between the tangible investment rate and apparent labour productivity in the European manufacturing industry. The research results show a negative and opposite relation between apparent labour productivity and investment rate, that is, changes in apparent labour productivity cause changes in investment in tangible assets but not vice versa. The findings do not show any significant differences among European countries when the relation between apparent labour productivity and investment rate is analysed. However, when analysing the gross investment in tangible goods, as well as in machinery and equipment, period effects are observed. A crisis and economic slowdown reduce investment in tangible capital. Meanwhile, the growth of the economy spurs more investment. The negative correlation between apparent labour productivity and investment rate indicates that investment in tangible assets is ineffective. An analysis on individual countries is required in order to reach more nuanced conclusions.

Heat stress, labor productivity, and economic impacts: analysis of climate change impacts using two-way coupled modeling

Climate change affects various fundamental human activities, and understanding the consequences of its impacts is essential. Among them, heat stress considerably affects economic conditions. Furthermore, when analyzing the socioeconomic impacts of climate change, both socioeconomic and climate systems must be considered simultaneously, though such studies are scarce. This study aimed to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of changes in labor productivity due to heat stress (measured by wet bulb globe temperature) under various climate change scenarios through a new modeling framework that coupled a computable general equilibrium model and an Earth system model of intermediate complexity to realize the interactions between the two systems through the relationship between heat stress and labor productivity. Results indicated that labor productivity declined as climate change progressed (particularly in hot and humid regions), driving a gradual decline in total global gross domestic product (GDP). Although regional GDP largely decreased where labor productivity considerably declined, it slightly increased in some areas because of a comparative advantage brought about by the difference in the impact on labor productivity by region. Consequently, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and concentrations and the resulting temperature were slightly reduced when examining the impact of climate change on labor productivity. These tendencies were similar in both business-as-usual and climate change mitigation scenarios, but the overall impacts were smaller under the latter. There was a limited impact on CO2 emissions, CO2 concentrations, and temperature via integrated socioeconomic and climate systems. However, this study focused on only a single channel of the various interactions between the two systems. For a more complete evaluation of the impacts of climate change, further development of the integrated model is required.

A Critique of Marketism: Varieties of Exchanges in China’s Past and Present

The theory and ideology of mainstream Anglo-American “marketism” do not accord with reality. Its core idea—equating all trade with equal and mutually beneficial market exchanges, and believing that such exchanges are certain to lead to division of labor and transformative changes in labor productivity—is a one-sided, idealized construction. It erases unequal exchanges under imperialism and ignores the realities of the use of cheap informal labor in developing countries by hegemonic capital in the globalized economy. It also disregards pervasive unethical pursuits of profit among producers and widespread human weaknesses among consumers. If we proceed instead from China’s actual experiences, we can come to see and grasp the many different varieties of trade that differ from the abstractions of conventional marketism, including the “commercialization of extraction” that long characterized the principally unidirectional “trade” based on severe inequities between town and country, as well as the “growth without (labor productivity) development,” or “involutionary commercialization,” that long characterized domestic Chinese commerce that emerged under severe population pressures on the land. If we turn instead to the “take-off” period of the recent decades in Chinese economic development, we can see also the great contrast between Chinese realities and the mainstream economics construct of a “laissez faire state,” and see instead the state engaging most actively in development, and state-owned enterprises working closely together with private enterprises. Those realities are perhaps most evident in the recent dramatic development of China’s mammoth real estate economy that has been the main engine of rapid development since about 2000—most especially in its immense process of the “capitalization of land.” We can also see how the tradition of the “socialist planned economy” has operated in unison with the new capitalist market economy, by combining the twin ideals and mechanisms of “people’s livelihood” and “private profit.” What is needed is a new kind of political economy that can grasp and illuminate such changes.

The interplay of labour, land, intermediate consumption and output: a decomposition of the agricultural labour productivity for the Baltic States

This article proposes a decomposition approach for the agricultural labour productivity change that takes into account the land-to-labour ratio, intermediate consumption intensity and intermediate consumption productivity. The case of the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) is considered which is interesting in the light of the European Union (E.U.) expansion and the structural change taking place in those countries. In addition, Poland, Germany and Denmark are included in the analysis as benchmark countries. To quantify the drivers of the agricultural labour change in the countries considered, the Index Decomposition Analysis (I.D.A.) is applied. The analysis proceeds in two directions: first, the cumulative change in the agricultural labour productivity over 1998–2018 is decomposed for each country under analysis; second, differences in the agricultural labour productivity for each country vis-à-vis Denmark (the highest productivity country) are decomposed. The results offer important policy implications as the intermediate consumption intensity appears as the critical factor that needs to be addressed via the support payments.

Churning and Labor Productivity in Economic Crisis, Differences between Foreign and Domestic Firms

ABSTRACT Our analysis of matched employee-employer data from Estonian firms (years 2006–2013) shows that an increase in labor churning is related to a positive change in labor productivity during an economic crisis. During boom years, churning is related to a negative change in labor productivity. Only in services during the crisis did foreign firms have a stronger positive relationship between labor churning and labor productivity changes than domestic firms. However, our analysis at the individual level does not confirm that, during a crisis, foreign firms in services hire more employees with characteristics that have been found to be related to productivity increases.

Structural and Dynamic Changes in Economy and Labor Productivity

Structural and Dynamic Changes in Economy and Labor Productivity

Human capital and productivity growth in agriculture in Vietnam

For a country that is in the process of transforming its agricultural model for development like Vietnam, human capital development is one of the most important keys to ensure the sustainable of economy. In order improve agricultural productivity, it is needed to increase the level of human capital of the agrarian population. This study examines the relationship between human capital and labor productivity in the 1997 - 2018 period of Vietnam. This study employs a quantitative approach, using the endogenous growth model with the Cobb-Douglas production function to analyze the factor’s contribution to Agriculture labor productivity. The result showed that human capital development has a significant impact on agricultural productivity in Vietnam. The result also showed that there exists a U-shaped quadratic relationship between trade openness and agricultural output. The findings also showed that the contribution rate of human capital in labor productivity growth is low, while capital investment does not reflect changes in labor productivity. Therefore, in order for human capital to become one of the important factors to promote Agriculture labor productivity in the future, Vietnam needs to raise awareness of the role of human capital and to focus on developing human resources as a tool for improving productivity of agriculture, to transform the growth model from width to depth. It should also be essential to move towards developing hi-tech agriculture with high productivity in the future.

Technological and non-technological drivers of productivity dynamics in developed and emerging market economies

Frequently, factors other than structural developments in technology and production efficiency drive changes in labor productivity in advanced economies (AEs) and emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). In this paper, we contrast the responses of AEs and EMDEs to innovations in technology and investigate whether the cross-country co-movement in productivity is due to technological or non-technological factors. We find that technological innovations are associated with higher and more rapidly increasing rates of investment in EMDEs relative to AEs, suggesting that positive technological developments are often capital-embodied in the former economies. Employment falls in both AEs and EMDEs following positive technology developments, with the effect smaller but more persistent in EMDEs. Low cross-country correlations of technological developments suggest that global synchronization of labor productivity growth is primarily due to non-technological influences. Overall, non-technological factors accounted for most of the fall in labor productivity growth during 2007-09 but less than one-half of the longer-term productivity decline after the global financial crisis in the median AE and EMDE.

Assessment of the Regional and Sectoral Economic Impacts of Heat‐Related Changes in Labor Productivity Under Climate Change in China

AbstractClimate change leads to heat‐related changes in labor productivity, which have additional economic impacts. Based on a framework that considers the impacts evolving from climate change to labor productivity to economic impact, we estimate the changes in labor productivity for indoor and outdoor activities and different work intensities at the grid level in China under a wide range of climatic and socioeconomic conditions and then evaluate the economic impacts in seven regions and eight sectors. The results show that (a) the negative impacts of labor productivity are concentrated in outdoor sectors, and the labor productivity of indoor sectors will decrease slightly or even increase due to high air‐conditioning device penetration rates under relatively optimistic scenarios. (b) The national results show that total economic impacts increase by 0.28%–0.61% of the GDP for each 1°C rise in the temperature, and the total economic impacts of labor productivity reductions in the most pessimistic scenario reach 1.15%–2.67% of the GDP in 2100. (c) The regional results indicate that the regions with lower labor productivity impacts (Northwest and Northeast China) still suffer large economic impacts, highlighting the importance of economic impact assessments across the regions. (b) The sectors in the seven regions of China that are most sensitive to climate change are agriculture and construction. The economic impacts in the manufacturing and service sectors, which contribute 22%–35% and 11%–15% of regional GDP losses, respectively, cannot be ignored, and should receive more attention in climate mitigation policies.