Industrial Total Factor Productivity Research Articles

Estimation of cross-country differences in industry production functions

International trade economists typically assume that there are no cross-country differences in industry total factor productivity (TFP). In contrast, this paper finds large and persistent TFP differences across a group of industrialized countries in the 1980s. The paper calculates TFP indices, and statistically examines the sources of the observed large TFP differences across countries. Two hypotheses are examined to account for TFP differences: constant returns to scale production with country-specific technological differences, and industry-level scale economies with identical technology in each country. The data support the constant returns/different technology hypothesis over the increasing returns/same technology hypothesis.

Business Dynamics and Efficiency in Industries and Regions: The Case of Spain

High rates of firm births and deaths are a pervasive phenomenon across industries and territories. Most studies have related the great turbulence at the fringe of practically all manufacturing industries to positive effects on the long-run performance of industries. According to these views business turbulence, although it has a relatively small incidence on net entry, leads to allocative improvement and stimulates innovation. The existing set of empirical studies does not reach clear conclusions, however, and many questions are still open. Our contribution analyses the relationship between business dynamics in manufacturing and the growth of total factor productivity in industries and regions. After a review of current literature on entry and exit it is argued that most models are tailored to suit the processes observed in industries and regions that are near the technological frontier, and we propose an approach that could be more representative of middle range economies such as Spain. According to this approach new firms are seen more as users of innovations than producers of innovations. We adopt a model based on a vintage capital framework in which new entrants embody the edge technologies available and exiting businesses are supposed to represent the most marginal obsolete plants. Both industries and regions are represented by a Hall's type production function which controls for imperfect competition and economies of scale. The results show that both entry and exit rates contribute positively to the growth of total factor productivity in industries and in regions.

Estimation of Cross-Country Differences in Industry Production Functions

International trade economists typically assume that there are no cross-country differences in industry total factor productivity (TFP). In contrast, this paper finds large and persistent TFP differences across a group of industrialized countries in the 1980s. The paper calculates TFP indices, and statistically examines the sources of the observed large TFP differences across countries. Two hypotheses are examined to account for TFP differences: constant returns to scale production with country-specific technological differences, and industry-level scale economies with identical technology in each country. The data support the constant returns/different technology hypothesis over the increasing returns/same technology hypothesis.

Spillovers, Linkages and Technical Change

Using US input–output data for the period 1958–87, I find strong evidence that industry total factor productivity (TFP) growth is significantly related to the TFP performance of the supplying sectors, with an elasticity of almost 60%. R&D intensity is also found to be a significant determinant of industry TFP growth, with an estimated return of about 10–13% and the return to embodied R&D is estimated at 43%. Direct productivity spillovers, from the technological progress made by supplying sectors, appear to be more important than spillovers from the R&D performed by suppliers. They also play a key role in explaining changes in manufacturing TFP growth over time. Changes in the contribution made by direct productivity spillovers to TFP growth account for almost half of the slowdown in TFP growth in manufacturing from 1958–67 to 1967–77, and for 20% of the TFP growth recovery in this sector from 1967–77 to 1977–87. Changes in R&D intensity and embodied R&D are relatively unimportant in explaining movements in manufacturing TFP growth over these three periods.

Productivity measurement and price cap regulation: Issues for local exchange carriers in the USA

Abstract The success of price cap regulation depends, in part, on proper specification of the price cap formula's productivity offset. The productivity offset should be based on the long-term trend rate of growth of industry total factor productivity (TFP) to emulate competitive pricing outcomes and provide the proper efficiency-enhancing incentives, and to remain relatively immune from the short-term fluctuations inherent in productivity measures. The measurement of TFP should utilize standard index number techniques to aggregate dissimilar measures of output, capital, labor and other relevant input costs.

Productivity Measurement in Common Property Resource Industries: An Application to the Pacific Coast Trawl Fishery

This article measures total factor productivity in industries that exploit resources held in common. Particular attention is paid to the valuation and specification of in situ commonproperty resources in a neoclassical production technology, catchability of the resource, and variations in economic capacity utilization. An empirical analysis of the open-access Pacific coast trawl fishing industry demonstrates that disentangling the productivity residual from changes in resource abundance, its catchability, and variations in capacity utilization hones the productivity residual to finer precision, lowering mean productivity growth by about haK Removing biological noise from highly variable resources is also important. The results are related to aprogram limiting the number of vessels and can contribute to sustainable resource management whenever resources are held in common.