Increase In Total Factor Productivity Research Articles

Why is China Growing so Fast?

China has been growing at a spectacular rate in recent years, enabling per capita incomes to almost quadruple in only the last decade and a half. This paper identifies the sources of economic growth in China from 1952 to 1994. While capital accumulation played an important role in China's economic growth throughout the period, it is basically the sharp and sustained increase in total factor productivity that accounts for the unprecedented economic growth observed during the reform period. The productivity gains largely reflect market-oriented reforms, especially the expansion of the nonstate sector, as well as China's “open-door” policy, which brought about a dramatic expansion in foreign trade and foreign direct investment.

Productivity in the pulp and paper industries of the United States and Canada: a nonparametric analysis

Partial and total measures of factor productivity are presented for the pulp and paper industries of the United States and Canada, from 1959 to 1987. Total factor productivity was measured with (1) a Tornqvist–Theil index, (2) a nonparametric index with translating hypothesis, and (3) a nonparametric index with distance functions. Method 1 implied a constant return to scale translog production function. Methods 2 and 3 removed any assumption on the functional form of the production function. Furthermore, method 3 allowed for fully disaggregated outputs. Methods 1 and 3 gave similar results within countries: an increase in total factor productivity of 0.7% per year in the United States and of 0.5% per year in Canada. Method 2 gave rates of growth of total factor productivity that were twice as high, but unreliable because of the assumptions of the method. From 1961 to 1984, when comparable data are available, methods 1 and 3 gave growth rates of total factor productivity that were significantly higher, statistically, in the United States than in Canada. Nevertheless, the differences seem to be too small to be of economic significance.

Technological Change in Meat and Poultry-Packing and Processing

AbstractNonparametric procedures are used to compare technological change in SIC 2011, meatpacking, and SIC 2015, poultry slaughter and processing. There has been a greater increase in total factor productivity in poultry than in the red meats. Evidence also suggests recent differences in the bias of this technological change, with production changes being labor using in poultry and biased towards greater efficiency in the use of live animal inputs in meatpacking.

Total Factor Regional Productivity in Greece

The components of productivity change in manufacturing industry over the regions of Greece in the 1980s are examined. Regional differences in productivity are significant in two respects. They reflect the outcomes of different production processes in space where labour is supplied and combined with various sorts of capital and where specific technologies are used. They also reflect opportunities for developing efficient business operations in space, in that they indicate one important aspect of a region's comparative advantage. Change in value added in manufacturing is represented by change in the factor inputs of capital, labour, and technology. Some of this change in output is accounted for by constant returns to scale. The rest is a result of variable returns to scale, such as produced by agglomeration economies or diseconomies, different levels of infrastructure provision, etc, and technological change. Total factor productivity represents these sources of nonconstant returns to scale. It is shown that for Greece the largest gains in total factor productivity are to be found in the noncentral regions, and especially in those having industrial area projects and industrial grants and incentives. These results are in line with research undertaken in other contexts. Those areas with the most significant productivity gains from the deployment of new technology tend to be the well-established centres housing medium-sized populations. There is some evidence to suggest that new employment opportunities are associated with increases in total factor productivity, although rarely with advances in the use of new technology.

The Impact of Economic Reform on Productivity Growth in Chinese Industry: A Case of Xiamen Special Economic Zone

China's industrial and trade reforms were expected to stimulate growth in output and welfare by increasing the capacity of industry to absorb surplus factors of production, and by utilizing labour, capital, energy and materials more efficiently. The impact of the special economic zone reform policies on productivity and growth is assessed by studies of China's overall industrial sector performance and case studies in Xiamen and Shanghai Beijing, which is not subject to special policy initiatives, is used as a control. Although there were data limitations, several conclusions may be drawn.An increase in total factor productivity was found to have occurred in Xiamen during the reform period, but the creation of the special economic zone does not appear to have had a significant impact on productivity.Productivity performance in Beijing's state‐owned industry was considerably poorer than that of total Xiamen industry, including state, collective and firms jointly owned with foreign investors, and was also lower than the productivity performance of Xiamen's state sector. The productivity performance of Xiamen's joint ventures and collectively owned firms was, however, considerably superior to the state sectors in both cities.Due to data constraints, the analysis of productivity in Shanghai was for a shorter period. Most of Shanghai's state‐owned industry did better than the state‐owned sector in Beijing but did not perform as well as the non‐State sector in Xiamen over this period. Factor productivity in Shanghai industry was stagnant, Beijing's industrial productivity generally declined, but Xiamen's productivity improved considerably over the decade.One of the major strengths of this study is its access to new and more accurate disaggregated price indices to deflate capital investments on an industry by industry basis. Hence, the availability of the new capital stock deflator series should improve the total factor productivity estimates considerably.

Capital Needs and Investment Financing in Eastern Countries

The paper evaluates the future capital needs of Eastern countries and the potential structure of financing. Under certain growth assumptions, the investment needs amount to some $ 169 bn per year for Eastern Europe and nearly three times this amount for the former Soviet Union. Accelerating the catching-up process beyond the assumptions made would require more capital in earlier years; increases in total factor productivity would require less capital. Not all the financing needs will and can be provided by the West. It will be necessary to mobilize new domestic savings and also to increase the absorption capacity in Eastern countries. Only solid projects will be able to obtain funding from private capital markets. Eastern countries will thus need to offer foreign investors risk-adjusted returns at least comparable to those in developed countries.

The impact of R&D on productivity increase in Japanese manufacturing companies

This paper estimates the impact of R&D expenditures (as a ratio to value added) on the rate of total factor productivity increase using the data of 135 to 168 Japanese manufacturing companies in each of two periods - Period I (1966–73) and Period II (1974–82). The rate of return on R&D stock is estimated at 20 percent in Period I and 17 percent in Period II, but is found to decrease when industrial intercept dummies or the rate of deflated sales growth is added as an explanatory variable, which is interpreted as suggesting the inter-industry differences in the rate of exogenous technical progress and the existence of a learning effect. Interindustry differences in the rate of return on R&D are also investigated.

Welfare Implications of Oligopoly in U.S. Food Manufacturing

AbstractA statistical procedure is used to show that increased concentration in U.S. food‐manufacturing industries is associated with increased total input productivity. A price leadership model is employed in order to estimate total welfare loss. If an elasticity of −1 is assumed, deadweight loss to society is estimated at 0.5% of food value. If an elasticity of −0.5 is assumed, total loss to consumers amounts to 6.11% of food value, which is $‐10 billion in 1975. The increase in total factor productivity which is linked to concentration is roughly sufficient to offset the entire loss to consumers.

THE TREATMENT OF INTANGIBLE RESOURCES AS CAPITAL

The author describes the results of his current research designed to measure total investment, tangible and intangible, and the derived capital stocks for the U.S., 1929–1966. With respect to total investment, the estimates show a marked increase in its ratio to GNP. All of the increase occurs in the intangible component comprising R & D, education and training, health, and mobility. The increase was concentrated in the government sector, although households increased the proportion of disposable personal income devoted to total investment.Consistent with the relative investment trends, the stock of intangible capital grew considerably faster than the tangible stock. The growth of total capital stocks was somewhat less than that of GNP, however, in both current and constant prices. Thus, the rate of return on total capital rose somewhat over the period. Average rates of return on human and nonhuman capital were closely similar.In real terms, the growth of total capital stocks accounted for two‐thirds of the growth in real GNP, 1929–1966. One‐third of the growth is attributed to residual forces, chiefly economies of scale, changes in inherent quality of human and natural resources, changes in values and motivations, and changes in rates of utilization of capacity.The growth of the ratio of real intangible stocks to real tangible stocks accounted for less than half of the increase in total factor productivity 1929–1966. This is significantly less than the contribution of intangibles as estimated by Denison, and the author adduces several reasons why his estimates may understate the contribution. Nevertheless, it seems that the net effect of the residual forces enumerated above must also have made a substantial contribution to the growth of tangible factor productivity and real GNP over the 37‐year period.