Total Labor Productivity Research Articles

Understanding the Need for Income Tax Incentives. A Case Study on the It Sector in Romania

Abstract In 2023, the Romanian Government decided on the reduction and alignment of tax incentives for employees in the IT, construction, agriculture and food industry sectors. This paper aims to analyze the impact on these activity fields, with a focus on the IT sector. For this purpose, indicators such as number of employees, percentage in the total GDP and labor productivity were considered relevant and the data was processed using the regression analysis. Thus, the implementation of fiscal facilities had an overall positive impact on all industries in terms of employment, but not necessarily as a percentage of GDP. A strong, direct link between the increase in the mean salary in the IT industry and number of employees, labor productivity and percentage of GDP was determined, with a coefficient of multiple determination of over 90% for all three regression analyses. The elimination of benefits for the employees working in IT might have a negative impact on the sector which has become a main strategic resource for Romania, mainly because the possibility of working remotely can make companies easily relocate their IT departments.

Analisis Produktivitas pada Pengolahan Ikan Tuna Cube di PT. Aceh Lampulo Jaya Bahari

PT. Aceh Lampulo Jaya Bahari is a nautical product manufacturer based in the Lampulo fishing port, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Productivity is a comparison of input and output that indicates how effectively resources are managed and exploited to obtain the best results. High production means there is less likelihood of delays. PT. Aceh Lampulo Jaya Bahari's productivity achievement indicator values fluctuate annually, with some years seeing low or high production. The purpose of this study is to identify productivity-influencing elements, as well as to estimate the level of labor productivity, production amount, total productivity, and the difference in production amount when processing tuna cubes at PT. Aceh Lampulo Jaya Bahari. This study examines monthly production data from 2023 to determine worker productivity and output. The method is to measure partial and total productivity and then launch monthly productivity changes. The study's findings demonstrate that labor productivity and tuna cube output are higher than number one, indicating productive performance. PT. Aceh Lampulo Jaya Bahari met its production objective of 350 kg per month, with an average total labour productivity of 2.6%. This study advises that firms maintain production consistency and form a network of collaborating partners to ensure raw material availability.

Efficiency and productivity gains of robotic surgery: The case of the English National Health Service.

This paper examines the effect of new medical technology (robotic surgery) on efficiency gains and productivity changes for surgical treatment in patients with prostate cancer from the perspective of a public health sector organization. In particular, we consider three interrelated surgical technologies within the English National Health System: robotic, laparoscopic and open radical prostatectomy. Robotic and laparoscopic techniques are minimally invasive procedures with similar clinical benefits. While the clinical benefits in adopting robotic surgery over laparoscopic intervention are unproven, it requires a high initial investment cost and carries high on-going maintenance costs. Using data from Hospital Episode Statistics for the period 2000-2018, we observe growing volumes of prostatectomies over time, mostly driven by an increase in robotic-assisted surgeries, and further analyze whether hospital providers that adopted a robot see improved measures of throughput. We then quantify changes in total factor and labor productivity arising from the use of this technology. We examine the impact of robotic adoption on efficiency gains employing a staggered difference-in-difference estimator and find evidence of a 50% reduction in length of stay (LoS), 49% decrease in post-LoS and 44% and 46% decrease in postoperative visits after 1year and 2years, respectively. Productivity analysis shows the growth in radical prostatectomy volume is sustained with a relatively stable number of urology surgeons. The robotic technique increases total production at the hospital level between 21% and 26%, coupled with a 29% improvement in labor productivity. These benefits lend some, but not overwhelming support for the large-scale hospital investments in such costly technology.

Special economic zone dynamics and firm performance: Evidence from an emerging economy

AbstractThe empirical literature on Special economic zones (SEZs) has shown that SEZs have become critical policy tools for advancing economic and firm performance, especially in developing economies where financial capital, human capital, technology and technical know‐how to drive these performances are in limited supply. While the importance and effects of SEZs cannot be overemphasised and are well documented, particularly in Asia, SEZs' operationalisation, structure and policy practice appear to vary, especially in Ghana and hence a need to examine SEZ effects on firm performance in Ghana. Thus, following the difference in the structure and practice of SEZs and its limited empirical evidence in African emerging economies, this present study employs analysis of variance, treatment estimation and regression models covering 328 firms between 2018 and 2021 to shed insights on how SEZ dynamics/features affect firm performance (measured with total factor productivity, labour productivity, profitability, revenue generation and value added) in Ghana. Our results suggest firms operating under SEZ dynamics have varying significant effects on firm performance. Thus, while firms registered as SEZ firms and operating in SEZ enclaves and firms registered as SEZ firms and operating outside SEZ enclaves have significant positive effects on the performance indicators of firms, firms that are not registered as SEZ firms and operating outside SEZ enclaves detracted firm performance. Clearly, firms that possess SEZ dynamics/features tend to promote performance of firms as denoted in the empirical literature and theoretical approaches to SEZ. Arguably, the tax holidays, cheaper tariffs and infrastructural benefits derived by SEZ registered firms boost their productivity, revenue and profit performance higher than non‐SEZ registered firms. These results suggest policymakers/government should reduce administrative bottlenecks of registering as SEZ firms and operating in SEZ enclaves to increase the number of SEZ firm operations to induce performance and create room for fiscal revenue.

The determinants of labour productivity in the Eastern Cape Province: A sectoral and industry analysis

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of labour productivity in the Eastern Cape. Furthermore, the study estimates the determinant of labour productivity from a sectoral and industry perspective. The technique employed for the empirical analysis is the ARDL bounds test. The empirical results highlight that investment in ICT, health and GDP growth are the crucial determinants of total labour productivity in the Eastern Cape. The sectoral analysis shows that primary sector labour productivity is driven by human capital and investment in ICT. Trade is the most important factor explaining labour productivity in the secondary sector while the tertiary sector is driven by R&D expenditures and ICT investment. The industry analysis revealed results similar to those of the sectoral analysis to some extent. The results imply that the shift to a knowledge-based economy is crucial for the Eastern Cape.

Servitization and firm productivity premium across the product value chain: evidence from Russian manufacturing firms

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the firm productivity premium for servitized firms. It discusses servitization across the product value chain and estimates the effects of the range and extent of servitization on productivity premium in manufacturing firms.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a conceptual framework and tests the hypotheses on the effects of servitization on productivity premium using linear regression models with a sample of 20,837 Russian manufacturing firms gathered from the Ruslana Bureau van Dijk database and the Russian customs service.FindingsServitized firms exhibit higher total factor productivity and labor productivity. The labor productivity premium increases with the number of services offered. However, the impact of services on productivity varies along the product value chain: postmanufacturing and postsales services enhance productivity premium, while manufacturing and back-office services diminish them. The effect of establishment services remains ambiguous.Practical implicationsThis paper offers an analytical framework for firms to assess their servitization strategies. These strategies should be gradual, focused on enhancing firm efficiency rather than being an end goal. Firms should initiate the process by introducing services at the postproduction and postsales stages of the product creation chain to achieve productivity premium.Originality/valueThe paper extends the evidence on firm-level productivity drivers and contributes to the servitization theory. A servitization strategy should be portfolio-based, considering both the potential gains and losses in productivity resulting from the implementation of specific services.

Vertical integration, technical progress and structural change

Abstract In search of an alternative representation of the economic system, Pasinetti ended up with a notion of vertical integration (VI) that takes interdependencies as its starting point but does not explicitly consider their role in the unfolding structural economic dynamics (SED). In this paper, we show that SED may be more inclusive of such interrelations to appropriately consider VI as a tool for analysing economic systems under the conditions of technical change and structural transformation. Our strategy is to focus on Pasinetti’s shift from his original development building on Sraffa’s sub-systems to his formulation of VI in terms of a pure labour technology in which all goods are produced by labour only. To carry out the analysis, we resume his iterative algorithm of VI, showing that we can extend it to the case of an expanding economy as a bridge between the horizontal and vertical production representations. Following this route, we can effectively address the features of structural transformation associated with changing patterns of interdependence. Besides, we can go from an assessment of productivity growth at an industrial level to determining the pace of technical change in a vertically integrated sector (VIS), which allows focussing on a concept of productivity derived from the VI, labelled as the total labour productivity (TLP). The TLP is robust to outsourcing of production, whose effects are adequately dealt with insofar as it considers not only the direct but also the indirect labour required to produce the final output.

NSGA families for solving a dual resource-constrained problem to optimize the total tardiness and labor productivity in the spirit of sustainability

This proposed study deals with a typical dual-objective multi-task simultaneous supervision dual resource constrained (MTSSDRC) problem to optimize total tardiness and labor productivity. The problem is modeled mathematically into mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) because the productivity metric is non-linear. The model is converted into a mixed-integer quadratic problem (MIQP), so it can be solved using the hierarchical approach inside a solver. The development of the new problem model and study of the solver’s performance is the first contribution to this proposal. Unfortunately, the solver is not practicable if the number of jobs is large, for example, 50 jobs only. Therefore, we proposed four metaheuristic techniques distinguished by their techniques and decoding schemes as the other contribution. We implement and modify two famous NSGA techniques, namely NSGA-II and NSGA-III, that each is equipped with two decoding scheme types which are D1 and D2. Both decoding schemes are different in the resource allocation sequence and the selection criterion. We compare the performance among metaheuristics by running them in 8 cases of small problems and 28 cases of large problems. The essential results indicate that both D1 and D2 are recommended to be implemented since D1 is more sensitive to the total tardiness objective, but D2 is better at getting solutions with better productivity metrics. Although there is no significant difference between NSGA-II and NSGA-III, we suggest using NSGA-III for practicians because it can spread solutions more balanced, indicating more varied alternatives.

ANALYSIS OF THE DYNAMICS OF LABOR ABSORPTION IN WEST SUMATRA PROVINCE IN 2018-2020

The study aims to analyze the situation of employment in West Sumatra Province using indicators such as the employment status, sector/business field, and type of work, labor productivity, and labor elasticity during the period 2018-2020. The descriptive quantitative approach was employed, using secondary data from Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS). The data used include the main job status, economic sector, type of work, and constant price GRDP. The statistical data obtained describe the characteristics of the employment situation in the Province of West Sumatra. Information on the results of data analysis is visualized in the form of tables, graphs, and descriptions. Calculations are carried out to determine the value of labor productivity and elasticity. This method is carried out by calculating the ratio between the growth of employment opportunities and the growth of GRDP from different time points. The results of this study indicate that employment status in West Sumatra is dominated by formal workers. The primary and tertiary business sectors absorb more labor than the secondary sector. The agricultural, forestry, hunting, and fishery business workers are very dominant in absorbing labor in West Sumatra Province in 2018-2020. Total labor productivity decreased in 2020 due to a decrease in regional income in several sectors/business fields during the Covid-19 pandemic. Labor elasticity by sector/business field in West Sumatra mostly has a value of less than zero with the water supply, waste management, waste, and recycling sectors having the highest labor elasticity values.

REGIONAL LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN TURKISH ECONOMY

Structural change is labelled as the shift of resources from low productive sectors to those with high-value-added. The structural change process can stimulate the evolution of the economy by increasing productivity. This study examines structural change and the bases of labour productivity evolution in 26 regions of Turkey for 2010-2020 period. Therefore, the Shift-Share Analysis method was employed in the study. The TURKSTAT gross domestic product in chain-linked volume, index and percentage change (2009 = 100) and employment by kind of economic activity data were utilized. The consequences revealed that the within-sector effect is the primary basis of productivity evolution in 26 regions of Turkey. The structural change has a positive but minor bearing on total labour productivity evolution in almost all regions. The within-sector effect is more dominant in the agricultural sector, but the bearing of structural change is negative. Similarly, the within-sector effect is stronger in the regions' industrial sectors (except for TR71, TRA1, TRA2, TRB2). The bearing of structural change in the services sector was better than in other sectors. As a result, it has been observed that the labour force is not directed to high-value-added sectors, particularly in the agricultural and industrial sectors, but the situation is better in the services sector.

Measuring the labour productivity of sericultural farmers in Mahasarakham province, Thailand

Sericultural farming is important to the local economy of Mahasarakham province of Thailand. This study measured the labour productivity of sericultural farmers by calculating the total labour value added per hour worked, given that the total labour value added refers to the difference between the total revenue and the total cost, not including the labour cost. This mixed-method research collected empirical data from 160 households in five districts of Mahasarakham during the 2020 production cycle using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Silk mulberry sales minus all costs (except labour) were used to represent the added value of labour. The overall total revenue data and total costs in each production cycle were used in this study. The study's results revealed that farmers' total labour productivity equated to 1.68 USD per hour per production cycle, 9.69 USD per day and 1,559.61 USD per year, calculated using the added value of labour divided by total hours worked. When comparing by district, Na Dun had the highest productivity of labour at 1.90 USD per hour, followed by Na Chueak (1.82 USD per hour), Wapi Pathum (1.70 USD per hour), Phayakkhaphum Phisai (1.50 USD per hour) and Yang Sisurat tires (1.46 USD per hour), respectively. The research results showed that the labour productivity of the studied sericultural farmers, 1.68 USD per hour, was higher than the minimum wage of Mahasarakham labours in 2022, which was 1.26 USD per hour. Despite the higher productivity cost, various challenges faced by the farmers were also identified, including a shortage of labour, lack of a market to support production, insufficient promotion and support from government agencies, a low price for silk products, damage to barns repair costs, lack of investment and production factors. The procedures and methods used to raise silkworms are complicated and time-consuming. Traditional farmers' barns are insufficient for raising silkworms and sick silk varieties; a suitable barn design and systematic production management are recommended, providing the research's empirical evidence confirmed to help enhance labour productivity. Based on the results and discussions, this paper recommends future studies to investigate practical guides to help increase labour productivity and tackle the challenges facing local sericultural farming to a wider extent. Key words: Labour productivity, Measuring labour productivity, Sericultural farmers, Value-added labour

Does the implementation of green finance regulation promote the high-quality development of enterprises? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China.

The improvement of enterprise total factor productivity and labor productivity is the micro-embodiment of high-quality economic development. Green finance relies on the dual functions of resource allocation and environmental regulation to guide enterprises to adjust their mode of operation through incentive and restraint mechanisms, attach importance to energy conservation and environmental protection, and guide enterprises to develop with high quality. Taking the construction of the green financial supervision system in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment, we constructed a difference-in-difference model to investigate the impact and mechanism of green finance on the high-quality development of enterprises, based on the panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2006 to 2020. The results show that the implementation of green finance effectively promotes the high-quality development of enterprises. This promotion effect is heterogeneous from perspectives of enterprise-specific characteristics, executive education background, and environmental regulation intensity. The influence mechanisms mainly rely on tightening financial constraints, upgrading the level of green technology innovation, and improving the quality of internal control. These findings provide an important decision-making reference for better implementing green finance policies and promoting high-quality economic development under the green and low-carbon concept and carbon peak carbon neutrality goals.

PRODUCTIVITY SHOCKS AND INDUSTRY SPECIFIC EFFECTS ON EXPORT AND INTERNATIONALISATION: VAR APPROACH

This study examines the industry-specific effects of productivity shocks on exports and the internationalisation of the largest Croatian exporters. In order to answer two research questions: (1) Which hypothesis, the productivity-led hypothesis or export-led hypothesis, holds in the case of the largest Croatian exporters? (2) Are the effects of productivity shocks on exports and internationalization sectoral dependent, and in what way? The authors tested 300 largest exporters’ micro- financial data for the 2006-2015 period by using a vector autoregression (VAR) method. Three productivity measures examined are total factor productivity, labour productivity and capital productivity. The results imply that productivity-led hypothesis holds for majority of Croatian largest exporters’ sectors. Rather than a specific export-led hypothesis, a bi-directional flow has proved to have greater influence on several industrial sectors, including professional and scientific services and administrative services sectors, and to a lesser extent, transport and warehousing, accommodation and food sectors. It is predominantly negative in terms of TFP and positive in terms of labour productivity (agriculture, electricity and gas supply, wholesale and transport and warehousing, and information and communication) and capital productivity (electricity and gas supply). Managerial and policy implications of productivity shocks are discussed in the paper.

Air Pollution and Enterprise Energy Efficiency: Evidence from Energy-Intensive Manufacturing Industries in China

This study aims to investigate the causal effect of air pollution on enterprise-level energy efficiency in the energy-intensive manufacturing industries of China. To address the potential endogenous problem, it employs thermal inversions as the instrumental variable. The study finds that air pollution would significantly decrease enterprise-level energy efficiency. It shows heterogeneous influences of air pollution on enterprise-level energy efficiency, varying with enterprise ownership, enterprise age, enterprise location, and regional energy resource endowment. This study further reveals that air pollution exerts a negative influence on enterprise-level energy efficiency through the mechanisms of decreasing enterprise productivity (both total factor productivity and labor productivity), increasing enterprise total energy consumption, and lowering enterprise exports. The findings of this study provide an economic rationale for enterprises to motivate themselves to reduce air pollution and have important implications for policymaking in China and other developing countries.

Affecting Factors and Forecasting Trends of American GDP

The predictors of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have been a heated topic of research in recent years. Researchers have used diverse methods or models to find the factors that may affect GDP to some extent. However, there remain some gaps in the application of multiple regression models in GDP analyses. This paper aims to predict the trend of U.S. GDP by analyzing the trends of four variables and applying multiple regression models of these variables. As is found in the research, unemployment rate, total primary energy consumption and labor productivity of nonfarm business and nonfinancial corporations have an impact on GDP and can be utilized to predict GDP. Petroleum, hydroelectric power, solar energy and wind energy can also be used to forecast GDP. The findings of this paper may be conducive to more thorough and sophisticated analyses of GDP, the principal metric that is used to assess the performance of a nation’s economy.

The Effect of Educational Mismatch on The Turkish Manufacturing Industry

This article explores educational mismatch for twenty-three different Turkish industrial sectors using all available household surveys from 2004 to 2015. Our aim is to first evaluate the educational mismatch level in the Turkish industrial sectors and then analyze its effects on the sectoral total factor productivity, labor productivity, and wages. For the sectoral total factor productivity, our dynamic panel data estimations suggest that the modal value of education increases the growth rate of total factor productivity. Therefore, the widespread existence of educational mismatch implies the efficiency loss in Turkish manufacturing sector for the period of 2004-2015. For the sectoral labor productivity, the modal value of education and the mean value of over-education increases labor productivity whereas the mean value of under-education decreases it. These results clearly imply that the human capital theory overcomes the job satisfaction theory for the Turkish industrial industry because the mean years of over-education increases the sectoral labor productivity. For the sectoral wages, the mean value of over-education raises wages.

Ultra-fast broadband access and productivity: Evidence from Italian firms

We study the impact of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) infrastructures on the total factor productivity (TFP) and labor productivity of firms. We use unique balanced panel data for the 2013–2019 period on incorporated firms in Italy. Using the geographical location of the firms, we merge firm-level data with municipality-level information on the diffusion of UFB, which started in 2015. We derive consistent firm-level TFP estimates by adopting a version of the Ackerberg et al.’s (2015) method, which also accounts for firm fixed effects. We then assess the impact of UFB on productivity and deal with the endogeneity of UFB by exploiting the physical distance between each municipality and the closest optical packet backbone node. Our results show an overall positive impact of UFB on productivity. Services companies benefit the most from advanced broadband technologies, as do firms located in the North-West and South of Italy. We further decompose the impact of full-fiber networks from mixed copper-fiber connections and find that the former significantly contribute to enhancing firm productivity. Finally, by exploiting Labor Force Survey data, we provide suggestive evidence that productivity increases from UFB might be related to structural changes at the workforce level.

Foreign Technology Transfer, R&D and Innovation: Resolving the Technology–Productivity Conundrum

This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of foreign technology transfer and R&D on total factor productivity and labour productivity of Indian firms. The results of production function analysis indicate that foreign technology plays a significant role in output growth. The results of growth the accounting approach also suggest a critical role of foreign technology in the productivity growth of firms. Interestingly, our findings indicate that while R&D does not significantly contribute to productivity growth, it shares a complementary relationship with foreign technology and drives a firm’s productivity. Our findings indicate that firms that engage in R&D and foreign technology transfer have a competitive edge in terms of productivity and output, but the role of R&D intensity cannot be established.

Industry Differences in Productivity—In Agriculture and Tourism by Lake Balaton, Hungary

The paper compared the performance of firms in agriculture and in tourism in two countryside areas of Hungary, assessing 2613 firms for 16 years (2004–2019). The data are from tax reports of all firms of the analysed areas. Agriculture and countryside tourism depend on environmental factors, thus they are more seriously affected by adverse environmental events than other production or service industries. The research was aimed at identifying differences between the two industries, and reveal time patterns and size-related traits of performance. Labour force, sales revenues, total assets, labour productivity, and total factor productivity (TFP) were analysed with descriptive statistics and panel regression analysis. Results reveal that the performance of firms in these industries differ significantly regarding total assets, sales revenues, labour force, and labour productivity, but does not differ in TFP, and differences are associated either with average levels of indicator values or their temporal tendencies. Our results underline that firm performance considerably differs by firm size, smaller firms are generally more labour-efficient than larger ones, and labour efficiency is positively impacted by total asset level, but TFP is not. Agriculture was found to be not less efficient than tourism, contrary to general assumptions.

Effect of Labour Productivity on Overall Tea Productivity in case of Small Tea Growers: A Study of Golaghat District in Assam

The contribution of labour is vital in a labour-intensive production organization. The continuous growth of the farm is ensured by the labours participation. In recent years, the tea industry is facing an unexpected situation of labour supply which can be considered the problem due to changing dynamics. The emergence of small tea growers in place of an earlier form of large estates in the tea growing district of Assam seems to be prominent and a significant supplier of green leaves. It is observed that, it is over 23000 registered small tea growers under Tea Board of Indiathose who are by definition hasa plantation area of 10.12 ha or below and the question of labour productivity to the total tea productivity is of paramount importance. The study was conducted as descriptive by nature and a questionnaire was administered to extract the labour productivity in two ways such as man day plucking of labour and input –output ratio of labour to assess its contribution. Data collected was analysed to find out the correlation between labour productivity to the total productivity and whether the variances in between total productivity and labour productivity is similar. The study has concluded that although variations in the labour productivity and total productivity of tea are equal, they maintain a low correlation. In this regard, recommendations can be put forward like better skill formation of labour along with more stimulating benefits to them to boost motivation for ensuring growth and performance for small tea growers in Golaghat district of Assam.