Estimation Of Production Function Research Articles

Intangible capital and productivity: Firm-level evidence from German manufacturing

Abstract This article analyses the importance of intangible capital for firm productivity using comprehensive official firm-level data from German manufacturing. Both aggregate intangible investment and the share of investing firms increase over time. However, the distribution of intangible investment is heavily right-skewed, with many firms investing nothing or little and few investing a lot. This holds both for manufacturing overall and within narrowly defined industries. The group of top investors is highly persistent from year to year, and persistence increases over time. Production function estimations reveal a positive output elasticity of intangible capital which is small on average but increases substantially with firm-level intangible capital intensity. There are also effect heterogeneities by firm size and enterprise group membership, especially among high-intangible-intensive firms. Finally, considering intangibles as production factors reduces the measured dispersion of Total Factor Productivity (TFP), mainly by tightening the upper part of the TFP distribution.

Trajectories of Early Childhood Skill Development and Maternal Mental Health.

We investigate the impacts of a perinatal psychosocial intervention on trajectories of maternal mental health and child skills, from birth to age 3. We find improved maternal mental health and functioning (0.17 to 0.29 SD), modest but imprecisely estimated improvements in parenting (0.07 to 0.11 SD), and transitory improvements in child socioemotional development (0.06 to 0.39 SD). The intervention had negligible influence on physical health and cognition. Estimates of a skill production function reveal the intervention attenuated the negative association between maternal depression and child outcomes, and narrowed outcome gaps between mothers who were and were not depressed in pregnancy.

Motherhood and the Gender Productivity Gap

Abstract Using Danish matched employer–employee data, I compare the relative pay of men and women to their relative productivity as measured by production function estimation. I find that the gender “productivity gap” is 8%, implying that almost two thirds of the residual gender wage gap is due to productivity differences between men and women. Motherhood plays an important role, yet it also reveals a puzzle: The pay gap for mothers is entirely explained by productivity, whereas the gap for non-mothers is not. In addition, the decoupling of pay and productivity for women without children happens during their prime-child bearing years. These estimates are robust to a variety of specifications for the impact of observables on productivity, and robust to accounting for endogenous sorting of women into less productive firms using a control-function approach. This paper also provides estimates of the productivity gap across industries and occupations, finding the same general patterns for mothers compared to women without children within these subgroups.

Distributional effects of parental time investments on children's socioemotional skills and nutritional health.

Parental behavior is paramount to child health and skill formation, explaining a significant portion of differences in developmental outcomes. However, little is known regarding the distributional effects of parental time allocation at different levels of children's outcomes. I use a national administrative dataset of Chilean pre-school students to the estimate production functions for socioemotional development and body mass index z-scores at every decile of the distribution at baseline. Modest average effects conceal significant heterogeneity on the returns to parental time investments. Children in the bottom of the socioemotional development distribution could gain up to 0.4 standard deviations for a one standard deviation increase in time investments. A similar increase can lead to a reduction of 0.8 standard deviations in body mass index among severely obese students. Evidence reveals that children with high developmental scores are unlikely to benefit from additional parenting time.

Statistical estimation of potato production and cost functions in Qalyubia Governorate in the study sample

Statistical estimation of potato production and cost functions in Qalyubia Governorate in the study sample

Timing Assumptions and Efficiency: Empirical Evidence in a Production Function Context

Recent work estimating production functions has often used methodologies proposed in two literatures: (1) “proxy variable” estimation techniques (Olley, S. and Pakes, A., 1996, Econometrica, 64, pp. 1263–1295), and (2) “dynamic panel” estimation techniques. I illustrate how timing and information set assumptions are key to both, and how these assumptions can be strengthened (or weakened) almost continuously. I examinehow, in some common production datasets, strengthening or weakening these assumptions affects the precision of estimates—comparing these impacts to those achieved by imposing alternative assumptions sometimes utilized in these literatures. This illustrates efficiency tradeoffs between different possible assumptions, at least in the production function context.

CROP YIELD PREDICTION BASED ON MACHINE LEARNING

In order to find relevant information and draw recommendations, the data analysis process involves analyzing, cleaning, and modeling the data. India has a large population, hence it is important to protect the world's food supply despite climate fluctuations.Framers face serious problems in drought conditions.The agricultural output is significantly influenced by the kind of soil. Advising farmers to utilize fertilizers might assist them in making the best choice possible for their farming circumstances. There are several studies Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may be used for agricultural yield prediction. We can also anticipate the agricultural production by using data mining. We can advise the farmer to plant a better crop for a higher yield by thoroughly analyzing the prior data. Information from traditional farmers is transferred to educated farmers through smart agriculture. to calculate estimates of overall physical production functions for the yields of various crops in a given condition, taking into account a newly designed weather index as an input.To adequately compare our actual result, also known as the target, with the prediction model, which provides farmers with the analysis of rice production based on available data, regression and coefficient of determination analysis as well as average error rate were conducted. To increase crop production, several data mining approaches were employed to estimate the crop output. For operational projects, it is crucial to accurately and promptly evaluate the state of agricultural crops and predict possible crop yields. The goal of this study is to employ a variety of forecasting techniques to assess agricultural yield estimations in Ghana due to the significance of crop yield prediction. Crop yield prediction, which offers information to decision-makers.

The impact of climate change on economic growth: Evidence from a panel of Asian countries

Asia is recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions. This research aims to identify climate change effects on economic growth. It proposes a new and comprehensive perspective to examine the climate-economy nexus in this region and provides an underpinning for assessing the pathway of the growing Asian economy under the SSP climate scenario (CMIP6). We apply a macroeconomic-climate modeling approach with a climate damage function. The damage function, which is based on the temperature anomaly, was examined under three classes of damage severity. The climate change effect has been examined by including the direct effect on the output as the level effect and two more channels, including capital depreciation and productivity growth reduction. The augmented Solow growth model framework that considers different types of capital, including physical, human, social, and environmental capital, was applied. The labor productivity or technology is assumed to depend on trade-related variables, including trade openness, financial development, and foreign aid inflows. Also, in order to test the constant returns to scale assumption, the CES production function, which is the flexible production technology, was used. The study relied on the country-year panel of GDP per capita and other macroeconomic variables such as labor force, capital formation, financial development index, trade openness, and foreign aid gleaned for 1994–2017 to estimate production functions using the GMM estimation method. The climate data on the annual mean temperature and projections of future temperature are based on ICMP6 by 2100 for Asian countries. Based on the CES estimation results, constant returns to scale or Cobb-Douglas production function was adopted. The estimation results show that physical and environmental capital account for the highest contribution to the output per worker. However, the contribution of trade-related variables was found to be insignificant. The projected pathway by 2100 establishes that climate change would significantly reduce Asian output per worker, especially if severe damage function is examined, and climate change stays on the SSP scenario-anticipated trajectory. The output elasticity with respect to temperature under the most severe scenario was obtained −22.80, corresponding to the output per worker reduction of 46.7 percent in 2100. Among the three channels of the climate effect, productivity growth reduction showed the most adverse effect on output. The lower flexibility of the production function that restricts the environmental replacement with other inputs, may lead to a more binding role under growing scarcity conditions. It was also found that labor and technology could contribute dampening the capital damage induced by higher temperatures. From the research results, the findings suggest measures aiming at providing flexible production technology, development of capital-embodied technologies, and lower dependence on environmental capital.

Measuring the technological bias of robot adoption and its implications for the aggregate labor share

This paper investigates the technological bias of robot adoption using a rich panel data set of Spanish manufacturing firms over a 25-year period. We apply the production function estimation when productivity is multidimensional to the case of an automating technology, to reveal the Hicks-neutral and labor-augmenting technological change brought about by robot adoption within firms. Our results indicate a causal effect of robots on Hicks-neutral and labor-augmenting components of productivity. The biased technological change turns out to be an important determinant of the decline in the aggregate share of labor in the Spanish manufacturing sector.

Labour market rigidity and total factor productivity: a re-examination of the evidence from India

ABSTRACT The existing empirical studies concerning labour market rigidity associated with the labour laws in India suggest an adverse impact of rigidity on total factor productivity (TFP). In this paper, we improve upon both the measurement of spatiotemporal variation in labour market flexibility and plant-level TFP from production function estimates in the presence of institutional rigidity in labour inputs adjustment due to job security legislation based on the recent advancement in the literature. We use an unbalanced panel of manufacturing plants from the Annual Survey of Industries panel data from 1999–2000 to 2016–17 to analyse the relationship between labour market rigidity/flexibility and TFP. We find that establishments that fall under the purview of job security legislation have higher productivity than those outside the ambit of job security legislation. The results suggest that rigidity associated with job security provisions does not harm TFP, and higher flexibility is negatively associated with TFP. However, we find considerable heterogeneity in the flexibility–TFP relationship across various industry groups. The heterogeneity in the flexibility–TFP relationship suggests that flexibility-inducing labour policy may improve TFP in some industries and, at the same time, decrease it in others.

Production functions of NCAA men and women water polo matches

Previous research has adapted the use of economic production functions to estimate the scoring production of teams in professional sports. Most of these studies have focused on professional male team sports, most notably, US baseball, basketball, and association football. This study adds to the literature by utilizing a new and distinctive data set of shooting statistics from 88 men’s and 38 women’s NCAA water polo contests to estimate production functions for United States’ collegiate water polo games and identify the most important variables for predicting margin of victory in such competitions. The results show that shots on goal, average shot distance, number of counterattacks, quick shots, and efficiency in power play conversions are all significant predictors of goal differentials in men’s contests while shots on goal, average shot distance, counterattacks, and center shots are significant predictors in women’s matches. Previous season win percentage, rebounds, exclusions, and missed shots were not significant predictors in the models. These conclusions confirm and extend previous discriminatory studies of elite international water polo contests.

The Impact of Government Food Policy on Farm Efficiency of Beneficiary Small-Scale Farmers in Indonesia

Enhancing self-sufficiency and national food security have been strategic policy goals of the Indonesian government. From 2015 to 2019, a food policy program called Upsus Pajale had been implemented to provide input subsidies and extension assistants to farmers for three strategic commodities: rice, maize, and soybeans, to accelerate productivity and increase production. The study was done by interviewing 374 beneficiary farmers. The objectives were to explore production efficiency and the farmers’ perspectives on the policy programs. By conducting stochastic frontier production function estimation, the results show that the mean efficiency level was 0.866. This study revealed that land size, seed cost, and labor cost were found to be important determinants of technical efficiency. In addition, the results of the inefficiency model indicated that age and farmers’ associations had a significant and positive effect on efficiency scores, whereas education had a negative effect. Contrarily, none of the policy program instruments appear to be essential determinants of efficiency. Furthermore, the research found that farmers prioritized their habits and profitability when deciding which crop to cultivate and that pests were their main concerns. Hence, the government should focus on enhancing research and development for improved seedling pest management control and encourage the establishment of farmers’ association to share experience and transfer information and technology for farmers to improve their efficiency.

Do outsourcing services provided by agricultural cooperatives affect technical efficiency? Insights from tobacco farmers in China

AbstractIn this study, we assess whether household outsourcing production tasks provided by tobacco cooperatives affect household technical efficiency, using the survey data from 449 households in Guizhou Province, China in 2014. The one‐step estimation of the stochastic frontier production function is employed. We also use the instrumental variable approach to address the potential selection biases that may arise from unobserved factors that are correlated with both outsourcing service adoption and technical efficiency. The empirical results show that the farmers’ decision to outsource agricultural services provided by cooperatives has a positive effect on technical efficiency. The effects of outsourcing on technical efficiency are highly heterogeneous at different production stages. It is also interesting to note that the magnitudes of outsourcing effects on technical efficiency are similar between labor‐intensive services and technology‐intensive services.

Are governments bad entrepreneurs? On productivity and public ownership in Central European post‐Communist countries

AbstractAlthough Central European post‐communist countries have considerably liberalized energy sectors, privatizations have been poorly implemented establishing legal monopolies and retaining governments' pervasive influence. This study examines the effects of state ownership on productivity and Lerner indices, using a dataset on Central European firms, operating in industries of general interest, from 2009 to 2017. This study contributes to the literature by estimating production functions of energy companies, establishing a link between government ownership, and productivity and Lerner indices, applying continuous measures of state ownership, and evaluating impacts across quantiles. The overall results highlight that state ownership is associated with significant productivity losses, which increase over quantiles, and lower market power.

Gender Differential in Productivity and Income of Haricot Bean in Misrak Badawacho District of Southern Ethiopia

This study investigates gender differential in agricultural productivity, highlights its key determinants, and estimates the gap in income generated from the production of haricot bean. The study was conducted based on data generated from 122 male headed and 39 female headed households from Misrak Badawacho district of southern Ethiopia. Descriptive and inferential statistics as well as econometric models were employed to analyze the data. The models used were Cobb-Douglas production function, and output decomposition model. The estimates of CobbDouglas production function showed that fertilizer, improved seed, pesticide, labor, total land size, project participation, number of extension contact, tropical livestock unit, and distance from development agent center significantly affected productivity of haricot bean. The estimate of decomposition model found that farm income differences between male and female headed household was 311 birr. Based on the result of the study, it can be recommended that enhancing access to resource endowment and institutional support is critical in increasing the productivity and income of female headed households in the study area.
 Keywords: Differential, Gender, productivity, Misrak Badawacho, Haricot Bea

Economic and financial performance of Indian IT services export firms

This paper examines the economic and financial performance of the Indian IT services export sector. Specifically, economic performance is measured by total factor productivity (TFP) growth and financial performance is examined in terms of factors explaining accounting and market returns with the aid of seventy-six firm data set over a twelve year period (2004–2016).While thirty years of rapid development in the Indian IT services export sector is well documented, this paper suggests that much of the growth is attributable to replication rather than innovation. Results support the proposition that growth in the real output of Indian IT services sector is predominantly due to growth in real inputs (96%), as TFP accounts for only 4%. In addition, our estimation of Cobb-Douglas production function suggests modest economies of scale in the range of 1.06–1.14. With respect to financial performance, regression results confirm the important role of asset turnover, dividends, and debt in explaining accounting return measured by return on assets (39% adjusted R2). On the other hand, as expected, regression results explain only 10–14% (adjusted R2) of market return, which is total return on stocks including dividends. Statistically significant variables affecting market returns are: exchange rate, asset turnover, payout ratio, and standard deviation of the market return itself.

Estimating Production Functions of Multiproduct Firms

Abstract Multiproduct firms constitute a considerable share of firms and account for an even greater share of production. Nevertheless, the vast majority of production function estimates are based on the assumption that firms are single-product manufacturers. This assumption is due to a lack of data on how firms allocate their inputs across their various product lines. I provide a strategy for estimating product-specific input allocations and production functions of multiproduct firms involved in monopolistic competition. The strategy is based on using firms’ product prices and output demand in solving for product-level input allocations.

Gender wage and productivity gaps in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector

ABSTRACT The paper uses firm-level data to examine gender wage and productivity gaps in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector for the period 1996–2010. It investigates gender wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers after controlling for factors affecting average wages. Our findings show significant gender wage and productivity gaps and the segregation of female workers into low-paying firms. Controlling for average productivity reduces the magnitude of the wage gap but does not eliminate it. However, results using a simultaneaous estimation of wage equation and production function at a firm-level indicate no significant difference between the gender wage and productivity gaps. As such, further investigation into the sources of the dual gaps using matched employer-employee data is necessary. The Ethiopian government should focus on skill development to improve the productivity of female workers and address the segregation of female workers into low-paying firms.

R&D-Based Economic Growth and Technological Progress: Panel-System GMM Analysis for Emerging Economies

It is a generally accepted idea that in the digital age emerging markets of the global economy should realize a transition to an economic development model based on technological development and innovation in order to close the gap between their economies and advanced economies. One of the main contributions of this paper to the empirical growth literature is that it analyzes the empirical reationship between technological development and economic growth by focusing on ‘emerging economies’ and by employing the recent data of the variables. Another major novelty of this article is that it compares the empirical results of the emerging economies to those of developed countries. In this paper, the relationship between economic growth and technological progress is examined by using the production and innovation models in Romer (1990), one of the R&D-based endogenous growth models. In the analysis, the panel system-GMM estimator, one of the dynamic panel data analysis methods, was applied using the data of 44 countries in the emerging markets and developed economies for the period of 2000-2020. The results of the macro level production function estimations indicate that innovation, human capital and trade openness variables have a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth in emerging economies. According to the innovation function estimation results, the one-period lagged value of the patent applications, the R&D stock and human capital affect innovation positively and statistically significantly in the emerging eonomies. The results of the analysis largely support the theoretical framework presented in Romer (1990); according to the findings, technological innovation develops endogenously in emerging economies.

Transport Infrastructure and Regional Development: A Survey of Literature on Wider Economic and Spatial Impacts

The main purpose of the paper is to provide an overview of methods used to research the relationship between transport infrastructure investments and regional development, with a focus on wider impacts both in the traditional economic context (wider economic impacts or WEIs) and—which is a methodological novelty proposed by this paper—in the spatial context (wider spatial impacts or WSIs). In terms of methodology, research may be conducted using the following methods: cost benefit analysis (CBA) and multi-criteria analysis (MCA), accessibility and potential models, econometric production function estimates, regional modelling, trade and input-output (IO) modelling, Land Use-Transport Interaction (LUTI) or spatial computable general equilibrium (SCGE) models. In the European Union, approaches based on cost-benefit analysis (CBA), or possibly multi-criteria analysis (MCA), continue to prevail. Notwithstanding the availability of a wide range of methods for quantifying socio-economic impacts, the European Union recommends that wider economic impacts at the regional and national levels be assessed by means of qualitative approaches. This being the case, it is recommendable for the European Commission to take broad-ranging action towards ensuring that the effects of transport infrastructure investments are assessed by means of a broader range of approaches.