Productivity Growth In Europe Research Articles

Firm-level financial frictions and aggregate allocative efficiency

Abstract Capitalizing on the productivity decomposition proposed by Olley and Pakes, we analyse the role of financial factors behind the relatively muted post-crisis rebound in productivity compared to previous upturns in Europe. First, we provide an Ordinary Least Squares framework to decompose the index of sector-level productivity into trend and allocative efficiency components. We then extend our approach to estimate the contribution of firm-level confounders to the sector-level allocative component. Secondly, we find that financial leverage played an important role in explaining the change in aggregate productivity growth in Europe between 2004 and 2017. Thirdly, focusing on Northern and Western Europe, we show that the productivity potential could not be fully exploited due to access to credit conditions. Specifically, reducing collateral bottlenecks could more than double the effectiveness of financial leverage in spurring productivity growth in this region between 2014 and 2017.

Structural change and productivity growth in Europe — Past, present and future

This paper studies the effect of structural change on the historical path of aggregate labor productivity growth for a large sample of European countries, and it builds a quantitative multi-sector growth model to analyze the potential impact that structural change may have on future productivity growth. We document that the observed reallocation of economic activity since the 1970s towards the service sector has exerted a strongly negative effect on aggregate productivity growth in most European countries. Moreover, we perform a quantitative analysis to show that the expected path of structural change might continue to have a sizeable dent on future productivity growth in Europe. By contrast, the impact in the U.S. is expected to rapidly diminish. We show that this differential result can be explained by the large expansion, in Europe, of certain service sub-sectors characterized by stagnant productivity.

The Fundamental Causes of Economic Growth: A Comparative Analysis of the Total Factor Productivity Growth of European Agriculture, 1950-2005

In recent decades, the debate on economic growth has largely focused on the role of its fundamental causes: institutions, geography, trade, and culture. This study analyses the underlying causes of agricultural productivity growth in Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. To determine the importance of fundamental causes, Total Factor Productivity growth in European agriculture was calculated for the period 1950-2005 and several econometric models are discussed. This study highlights inclusive institutions, agricultural support policies that encourage innovation, qualified human capital and openness to international trade as key factors that favour productivity growth in agriculture.

Regional reindustrialization patterns and productivity growth in Europe

ABSTRACT After a long period of deindustrialization, Europe faces ‘the need to reverse the declining role of industry’, as the European Union officially claims, to relaunch productivity. Despite this strong political claim, scientifically sound analyses on whether a reindustrialization process takes place, and if it is accompanied by a relaunch of productivity, are still missing. Drawing on the path-dependence theoretical framework, different reindustrialization patterns are conceptually identified and operationally associated with European NUTS-2 regions thanks to an original database of value added at (sub-manufacturing) sectoral regional level in different time spans. Results suggest that the patterns are associated with different degrees of industry productivity growth. Ad-hoc policies accompanying different reindustrialization modes are suggested. They can help to achieve a critical mass of reindustrialization that could potentially stimulate a still missing effect on aggregate productivity increase.

Exports of Services, Output and Productivity Growth in Europe

In this study, we analyse the impact of service exports on GDP and productivity growth in a sample of thirty-eight European countries for the period 2000-2019. Descriptive statistics analysis of the panel data shows that growth in exports of goods is more positively related to GDP growth, total fixed assets growth and productivity growth, while growth in export of services is more positively related to employment growth. In addition, the analysis shows that the volume of exports (in terms of its share in relation to GDP) of knowledge-intensive services (information and communication, other business services, intellectual property) is higher in more developed countries (measured as GDP per person). The pooled panel OLS model (fixed effects) with GDP growth rate and labour productivity growth as the dependent variables shows a positive impact on GDP growth of exports of services, although the positive impact of growth in exports of goods is higher. It applies to labour productivity growth, with a larger positive impact from exports of goods than services.

Structural Change and Productivity Growth in Europe - Past, Present and Future

This paper studies the effect of structural change on the historical path of aggregate labor productivity growth for a large sample of European countries, and it builds a quantitative multi-sector growth model to analyze the potential impact that structural change may have on future productivity growth. We document that the observed reallocation of economic activity since the 1970s towards the service sector has exerted a strongly negative effect on aggregate productivity growth in most European countries. Moreover, we perform a quantitative analysis to show that the expected path of structural change might continue to have a sizable dent on future productivity growth in Europe. By contrast, the impact in the U.S. is expected to rapidly diminish. We show that this differential result can be explained by the large expansion, in Europe, of certain service sub-sectors characterized by stagnant productivity.

Total Factor Productivity Changes in Japanese Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in 1982–2016: Suggestive Indications of an IT Revolution?

Since the information technology revolution in 2000, businesses worldwide have adopted information and communication technology (ICT) and big data. Recent studies attribute the origin of productivity growth in Europe and the United States to the depth of ICT utilization. We investigate whether that is the case in Japan. We measure the productivity of five manufacturing and eleven services industries in Japan and observe how it changed before and after 2000. Our results suggest that productivity increased for providers of ICT products but not for providers of ICT services. Moreover, productivity rose after 2000 in seven services industries that are users of ICT. Japanese firms are predominantly small and medium-sized and we conclude that the productivity findings for western countries are also observed for Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises.

Discussion

Discussion

Banking competition, financial dependence and productivity growth in Europe

This study empirically analyses the links between banking competition and manufacturing productivity growth for a sample of 10 European countries during the period 1999–2009. To test this relationship, which from a theoretical point of view is unclear, we use a difference-in-difference methodology similar to the one proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998). We find that the total factor productivity of the most financially dependent industries grows more slowly in economies where banking competition is fiercer. We explain this result with the fact that bank market power, i.e., low competition, would promote relationship banking, as theoretically argued, for example, by Petersen and Rajan (1995). Relationship banking would allow banks to reduce information asymmetries, which would benefit small and/or young firms, improving the allocation of funds. Banks may select more of the best firms, which would increase total factor productivity of the industries that are more dependent on external finance.

Erratum to: Misallocation, Big Time: Why (and How) Structural Reform Can Revive Productivity Growth in Europe

Erratum to: Misallocation, Big Time: Why (and How) Structural Reform Can Revive Productivity Growth in Europe

Human Capital, Firm Capabilities and Productivity Growth

This paper determines the relative importance of technical efficiency and reallocation for aggregate productivity growth in a small open European economy. To this end we use a dataset containing all Belgian firms active in the private sector, both services and manufacturing. We observe at the firm level a number of factors that have been shown to be drivers of productivity differences across firms. More precisely, we have information on human capital such as the level of education and the amount of on-the-job training received by the employees. Moreover we observe the international activities of the firms such as imports and exports. This allows us to make a careful analysis of the micro foundations of aggregate productivity growth by applying the decomposition introduced by Petrin and Levinsohn (2012). The outcome of this exercise will not only provide us with a better understanding of the slowdown of productivity growth in Europe over the past decades, but also give an indication on the role of different productivity drivers in this process.

Is the Convergence Party Over? Labour Productivity and the Technology Gap in Europe

AbstractClosing the technology gap to reduce labour productivity disparities across Europe is crucial for the European cohesion policy. This article explores the sources of labour productivity growth in Europe over the period 1993–2007 in light of the enlargement process. Labour productivity growth has been mostly driven by capital accumulation. New Member States have significantly reduced their inefficiency and their technology gap. Disparities in the levels of labour productivity are still substantial and, to a considerable extent, they can be attributed to technology gap differences. This raises concerns about the process of convergence in labour productivity in Europe and suggests further policies aimed at reducing the technology gap.

Employment protection legislation and catching-up

After World War II (WW II), productivity growth in Europe and Japan was driven by catching up with the US. Institutions in Europe were different too and well suited for economic growth through imitation and adaptation of the technology to local circumstances. Catching up is, however, a self defeating process. It ends when the technology frontier is attained or when in case of conditional convergence institutions set a limit to the process of catching up. Once this situation is reached, the existing institutions may no longer be appropriate. Regression analysis on a panel of 21 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries reveals that Employment Protection Legislations (EPL) had a positive impact on productivity growth in the period of rapid convergence in the sixties and seventies. However, from the eighties onwards, the total effect of EPL on labour productivity growth was negative.

A Generalized Maximum Entropy Stochastic Frontier Measuring Productivity Accounting for Spatial Dependency

In this paper, a stochastic frontier model accounting for spatial dependency is developed using generalized maximum entropy estimation. An application is made for measuring total factor productivity in European agriculture. The empirical results show that agricultural productivity growth in Europe is driven by upward movements of technology over time through technological developments. Results are then compared for a situation in which spatial dependency in the technical inefficiency effects is not accounted.

ICT and productivity growth in the 1990s: panel data evidence on Europe

What has been the quantitative effect on productivity growth of information and communication technology (ICT) in Europe after 1995? Based on a multi-country sectoral panel data set, the authors provide econometric evidence of positive and significant productivity effects of ICT in Europe, mainly due to advances in total factor productivity. The impact of ICT in Europe has happened against a negative macro economic shock not related to ICT. This is in contrast to the established evidence for the US. Our main results challenge the consensus in the growth-accounting literature that there has been no acceleration of productivity growth in Europe, mainly due to a dismal performance of ICT-using sectors.

The Breaks in Per Capita Productivity Trends in a Number of Industrial Countries

The purpose of this article is to study the trends in per capita productivity in several major industrialised countries. The analysis is first based on annual data over a long period spanning the entire 20th century for the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Productivity trends are then studied over a shorter period, using quarterly data, for the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Japan and the Netherlands. There are already a large number of studies of this kind, but they are too often focused on presenting average productivity growth rates for given periods chosen on an ad hoc basis. In this article, we use a robust statistical method to endogenously identify possible breaks in per capita productivity trends. This method, developed by Bai and Perron (1998), brings out the following salient features: – in the United States, per capita productivity growth accelerated following the trend break at the start of the 1920s, then slowed down at the end of the 1960s. This finding is in line with the “Big Wave” concept developed by Gordon (1999, 2002) to describe the trends in US productivity growth throughout the 20 th century. – French and UK productivity started catching up with that in the United States around the end of the Second World War. – Most of the countries under review recorded slower trend productivity growth in the first half of the 1970s. In the United States, this break occurred in 1966. This finding differs from that of other existing analyses, which point to 1974. – Trend productivity growth in Europe and Japan slowed in the 1990s, whereas US productivity gained momentum over the same period.

The relative weight of manufacturing and services in Europe: An innovation perspective

This paper uses an innovation-based taxonomy of both manufacturing and service industries to assess the role of the process of structural change of the last 25 years on the rate of productivity growth in Europe, US and Japan. The empirical analysis exploits the shift-share methodology for a decomposition of aggregate labor productivity growth. A modified version is applied, that allows to interpret whether employment has shifted to higher or lower productivity sectors. The results are discussed in light of the role that the different industries play according to the innovation-based taxonomy.

The Productivity Gap between Europe and the United States: Trends and Causes

Since the mid-1990s, labor productivity growth in Europe has significantly slowed compared to earlier decades. In contrast, labor productivity growth in the United States accelerated, so that a new productivity gap has opened up. This paper shows that this development is attributable to the slower emergence of the knowledge economy in Europe. We consider various explanations which are not mutually exclusive. These include lower growth contributions from investment in information and communication technology; the small share of information and communications technology–producing industries in Europe; and slower multifactor productivity growth, which proxies for advances in technology and innovation. Underlying these are issues related to the functioning of European labor markets and the high level of product market regulation in Europe. The paper emphasizes the key role of market service sectors in accounting for the productivity growth divergence between the two regions. We argue that improved productivity growth in Europe's market services will be needed to avoid a further widening of the productivity gap.

The effect of congestion and agglomeration on multifactor productivity growth in Dutch regions

It is well known that labour productivity growth in Europe is slowing down, against an increasing growth rate in the US. The Netherlands is one of the countries in Europe with the lowest growth rates of productivity. This article looks at this phenomenon from a regional perspective and presents the results of a growth accounting exercise applied to regional industry data of The Netherlands between 1995 and 2002. We find that slow productivity growth in The Netherlands is particularly situated in the economic core regions and is caused by slow multifactor productivity (mfp) growth. A substantial part of this slow mfp-growth can be explained by the fact that positive agglomeration advantages are overruled by negative congestion effects caused by traffic jams.

Unwrapping some euro area growth puzzles: Factor substitution, productivity and unemployment

In this paper, we estimate a long run supply-side system incorporating a CES production function with time-varying factor-augmenting technical progress for the euro area over the period 1970–2005. We find that the elasticity of substitution lies below unity at 0.7, that labor-augmenting technical progress is dominant in the long run while capital-augmenting technical progress plays an important role in the interim period. Importantly, we also find evidence of a structural break in the pattern of biased technical progress towards the end of the 1990s. Our results help to solve two puzzles in Europe’s recent growth experience which differ markedly from the US experience. The first is related to the effects of the IT boom in the 1990s on productivity growth in Europe. The second puzzle concerns the changes in the “Okun’s law” relationship, linking growth to the reduction of unemployment, which are observable in Europe since the late 1990s.