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Efficient and effective handling of loading and unloading processes at ports is key to achieving set volume targets. In this context, intelligence strategy plays a crucial role in strengthening loading and unloading activities. This study aims to analyze how the implementation of intelligence strategy can enhance loading and unloading activities at Teluk Lamong Port. Through a case study approach, we explore the implementation of intelligence strategy by port authorities and its impact on achieving volume targets. The research findings indicate that well-integrated intelligence strategies can provide timely and relevant information to stakeholders, enabling more efficient resource management and enhancing coordination among various parties involved. The practical implications of these findings underscore the importance of employing intelligence strategies to enhance productivity and operational efficiency at ports, thereby contributing to the attainment of set volume targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigate how GVC participation and centrality in the intermediate trade network are associated with firms' productivity in the MENA countries. • Using several measures of GVCs, we show that firms in GVCs are more productive. • Multi-level estimations show that country-sector intermediate trade network centrality is also positively associated with firms' productivity. • Results are confirmed using propensity score matching and shift-share instrumental variable approach. Global Value Chain (GVC) participation is typically associated with a productivity premium, yet similar firms can benefit differently depending on the possibility for creating production linkages offered by their countries' involvement in trade. We show that country-sector intermediate trade network centrality is also positively associated with firms' productivity, suggesting that the connectivity of the business environment may enhance productivity on top of direct firm-level involvement in GVCs. For a large cross-section of MENA countries included in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES), we find evidence of productivity premia using several firm-level GVC participation measures and network centrality indicators constructed from the EORA input-output tables. Centrality is also positively associated with firms' productivity, adding to the direct effect of GVC participation. Our results are confirmed using OLS, multi-level models, Propensity Score Matching techniques, and a Shift-Share instrumental variable approach which help addressing endogeneity issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyze the determinants that explained the growth in productivity of 30 producing companies in the Cuban iron and steel industry during the period 2016-2019. The study contributes to the empirical literature on the factors that explain the economic performance in the Cuban industry, specifically the iron and steel industry, for which there is scarce evidence. The results show that, during this period, this industry is characterized by a decrease in production (-9.1%), due to the decrease in the factors labor and materials and a small increase in Total Factor Productivity (1.3%) and physical capital (0.7%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thrust of this paper is to unravel the role of perceived motivation and workers' productivity in educational sectors. By its objectives, It will show the importance of motivation to employees, It will reveal the strategies likely to motivate employees for better work results. To achieve the purpose of this study, one research question was posed, and one null hypothesis was generated. Survey research design was adopted for the study. A sample of seven hundred and ninety-two (792) respondents out of eight thousand one hundred and twelve (8112) administrative staff being the population was randomly selected from this study. The selection was done through the stratified random sampling technique. Questionnaire was the main instrument used for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face validation. The reliability estimate of the instrument was established using the Cronbach-Alpha reliability method. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis was the statistical analysis techniques adopted in the study. The hypothesis was subjected to testing at 0.05 level of significance with relative degrees of freedom. The results of the findings revealed that, there is a positive relationship between medical services as motivational factor and workers' productivity. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that management of all educational sectors should ensure that they build a healthy public policy, zero bills, subsided medical services as motivational package for efficient and productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated high rate of inflation and adult workers' productivity in Southern senatorial district of Cross River State, Nigeria. To achieve the stated objectives of the study, four research questions and four research hypotheses were formulated to direct the study. The survey research design was adopted for the study. A sample of 225 was drawn from the population of 2.250 workers using simple random sampling technique. An instrument titled: High rate of inflation and adult workers' productivity questionnaire (HRIAWPQ). The hypotheses were analyzed using pearson product moment correlation coefficient and tested at 0.05 level of significance and 223 degrees of freedom. It was discovered that rise of food items, rise of fuel price, rise in transportation and rise in manufacture goods significantly relate to workers' productivity. Insecurity in the work place, high inflation rate are powerful factors influencing workers' productivity and performance in their workplace. It was recommended among others that the government should reduce the cost of purchasing power of people by regulating market prices to cushion the effect of buying power of the Naira. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The observed low level of information and communication technology (ICT) usage among micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) firms in many African countries may serve as a major constraint to their productivity. The productivity of service and manufacturing firms is impacted differently due to this low uptake of ICT. This paper seeks to examine the differential effects of ICT on MSMEs' productivity in emerging African economies, specifically Egypt and Nigeria. This study evaluates the effects of ICT on MSMEs' productivity across different sectors (services and manufacturing), by size and aggregated. The estimated results support the positive impact of MSMEs' website presence and use of email on their productivity, though the magnitude varies across different analyses and sectors. This appears to support the differential sectoral impacts of ICT on MSMEs' productivity across countries in emerging markets. Specifically, this study finds evidence for a higher impact of firms' website presence on productivity in the manufacturing sector than the services sector across emerging economies. The study, therefore, recommends that emerging markets economies that want to implement appropriate national technology policies to enhance their firms' productivity should always consider their differential effects on various sectors, as universal ICT policies may not achieve the desired objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global construction has been blighted by productivity inertia caused by behavioural bias for decades. While other industry sector productivity has grown more than fifteen-fold since 1960, construction has stagnated with no more than a seven to ten percent overall growth. McKinsey Global Institute's report Reinventing Construction: A Route to Higher Productivity, reported infrastructure construction amongst a small group of outperforming market sub-sectors at 15 to 20 percent. This paper, which charts the development of a unique procurement model designed for high productivity, builds on that performance using behavioural insights to counter damaging and habitual biases. The new model changes trading relationships using a nudged 'opt-out' contract structure creating a different responsibility dynamic between client and supplier. A recognisable but different infrastructure construction procurement model to improve productivity using recognised behavioural economics and construction economics. Highways England was set up to run England's strategic road network in 2015. The procurement model that resulted, Regional Delivery Partnerships can be refined for any infrastructure sector construction environment and sets up a key step forward in contracting based on integrated project delivery. Using a combination of counter bias strategies built from loss aversion and nudge theory this new construction procurement model uses 'opt-out' from lean construction to drive higher productivity. By setting up an integrator, to create an integrated project team, Regional Delivery Partnerships uses loss aversion as the motivational key to better innovation. It empowers the integrator to counter uniqueness bias and find and eradicate waste (process time and money) to enhance productivity. Reward is aligned to both optimised efficient design and high productivity working. As 100% of budget underspend can be kept rewarding the integrator, the potential of not achieving this triggers loss aversion and motivates change using the principles of escalation of commitment in favour of the client. Performance data is also used to motivate using reduced acquisition costs from secondary competition, long held as an inefficient market overhead. Using recognised pragmatic academic techniques, and constructionism; choice architectures were remodelled into a new outcome and value focused procurement model. Using applied research, the team used processes and techniques to develop, build, test, and deploy the model in open market competition. It can be used by any infrastructure sector construction client to replicate a sector specific version of Regional Delivery Partnerships that changes trading choice architecture towards higher productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on the extent to which polycentric urban regions can substitute for the agglomeration economies provided by large cities. Building on an open‐source software tool that helps identifying polycentric developments in urban regions, we analyse the spatial structure (in terms of size, dispersion and polycentricity) of 94 regions across 34 European countries and link this to their level of total factor productivity. We find that both more polycentric regions and more dispersed regions are associated with lower productivity levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between common rationality (as a factor of convergence of employees and managers), collective decision-making (as one of the important methods of participation), and productivity (as an important indicator of organizational success). Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to investigate the strength of these relationships. After the distribution of 98 questionnaires among organizational experts we used Smart PLS 2.0 to analyze the data. The results show that the indirect relationship between common rationality and productivity through a mediating variable of collective decision-making is stronger than the direct effect of common rationality on productivity. It means that common rationality as a substantial asset for an organization could be used to improve productivity but if managers want to utilize this asset, they should apply it through another mediator which is collective decision-making. Collective decision-making could facilitate the relationship between common rationality and productivity by creating synergy among employees, reducing biases, increasing decision quality, and reaching the optimal decision. Plain Language Summary: One of the goals that managers and employees of organizations pursue is the issue of productivity because productivity leads to the success of the organization. The basic questions in this field are how to create purposeful participation in practice among the employees of an organization and lead them to participate in decision-making, how to provide the basis for employee participation in decision-making, and what indicators and methods should be used. This article examines the consequences of collective decision-making on productivity in an organization. Due to the high importance and practicality of the issue of collective decision-making and its effect on productivity, a conceptual model of research on this issue was designed and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The results show that common rationality affects productivity through the mediating variable of collective decision-making. Therefore, managers must pay enough attention to collective decision-making to increase productivity in the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual proposal is a state of the art in the field of strategic management of the company with the perspective of building an enlightening line of analysis for the efficient organization of Ecuadorian MSMEs and the region. This is a bibliographical research based on the criteria of Relational Capital, Collaborative Strategies and Risk Coverage. The conclusions reached reveal that these concepts allow business productivity to operate with high competitive criteria in the value chain and, from this perspective, they are a novel contribution to this field of business management and entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade, a growing literature has been assessing the impact of industrial robots on productivity and employment. At the local level, the labour-displacing effect of robot adoption can be counterbalanced by a task reallocation between manufacturing industries characterized by similar/related occupational spaces. This reallocation process can be also influenced by the average degree of occupational complexity of the local labour markets. To test for the mediating role of similarity and complexity in the robot-employment-productivity relationship, we develop a two-step analysis mixing information from different data sources on 15 industries and 39 local labour market areas of the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy, for the period 2008–2017. Our analysis shows that higher exposure to robots does not affect the aggregate level of labour productivity, but, rather, is associated with a decline in (high routine) employment after three years. We further show that the negative relationship between robots and employment decreases, or even vanishes, in local labour markets with high cross-industry occupational similarity and low occupational or task complexity, and within industrial districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the linkages between foreign investment and the total factor productivity of local enterprises within manufacturing industry in Vietnam. The Wooldridge GMM estimation approach is applied to panel data to estimate production function, which allows us to obtain total factor productivity of local firms. We then investigate how foreign investment influences local enterprise productivity through different spillover channels using two-step system GMM, FE and RE estimations. Our consistent findings show that foreign investment has a negative impact on the total factor productivity of domestic enterprises through the competition channel within an industry. There are strong positive spillovers associated with backward rather than forward linkages. Further insights relate to firm ownership, location, and the state of technology in which the different spillovers occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Within the two-tier bargaining system, the role of complementary collective bargaining is somewhat controversial. In this paper, the authors analyse collective agreements from a triple perspective: scanning the contents of firm-level complementary collective agreements (CCAs); identifying the factors that determine the probability of signing a CCA and analysing the relationship between the latter and firm performance with a focus on the role of different negotiated topics. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical procedure is based on 2 main linked sources: longitudinal balance sheet data and a cross-sectional dataset of a representative sample of Italian firms with at least 15 employees, including some retrospective information. The innovative dataset derives from integrating multiple sources. The main empirical approaches include Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimations, multivariate regressions, as well as instrumental variable (IV) estimations to overcome simultaneity issues. Findings: With respect to the probability of signing a CCA, on the firms' side, the authors find a positive role of the degree of firm capitalisation and affiliation with an employers' association and a negative role of family firms compared to non-family firms; on the workers' side, a positive role of the workers' unionisation rate and a positive but differentiated weight of workers' union representations and industrial conflicts. With regard to firm performance, the authors' estimates suggest that signing a CCA is associated with an average increase of 3% in total factor productivity (TFP) and 7.8% in labour productivity. By investigating the contents of the complementarity agreements, the authors show that bargaining a wider range of topics implies advantages that are not homogenous, benefitting more efficient firms. Moreover, the authors find a specific positive and significant role for three main interacting issues: economic incentives, organisation and employment. Research limitations/implications: The cross-sectional structure of the data on bargaining practices prevents detecting causal relationships due to either potential common driver(s) of both the target variables (firm performance) and bargaining practices (simultaneity bias) and unobservable time-invariant firm-level characteristics (heterogeneity bias). Practical implications: According to the authors' results, policymakers should operate along four fiscal channels to spur the efficiency of firms, via CCA. First, tax incentives stimulate higher firm capitalisation, as this seems to be a CCA-favouring factor. Second, deduction in taxable income for union members, which should led to higher membership rates, hence raising the likelihood of obtaining a CCA. Third, incentives aimed at directly promoting the greater diffusion of CCAs as a source of improved performance. Fourth, fiscal tools aimed at favouring the negotiation of either specific contents or "bundles" of contents, which the authors' estimates show as an additional performance-enhancing tool of CCA practices. Originality/value: The conceptualisation of the contents of CCA as organisational investments and the whole probability function of signing a CCA are quite innovative. Moreover, the econometric strategy takes account of several potential sources of bias when estimating the relevant coefficients at each stage, which is currently not fully considered in the literature. Finally, this is the first study to shed light on both the diverse outcomes associated with different negotiated topics (in terms of quantity and quality) and the distinction between short and medium-long term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background This study aims to analyze the health resource allocation efficiency in Sichuan Province from 2010 to 2018 and provide other countries with China's experience. Methods We used the super efficiency slack based model (SBM) model and Malmquist index to analyze the super efficiency and inter-period efficiency of health resource allocation in 19 cities in Sichuan Province from 2010 to 2018 and propose the input-output optimization scheme of health resource allocation in 2018. Finally, the Tobit model was used to estimate the influencing factors of health resource allocation efficiency. Results The total allocation of health resources in Sichuan Province was increasing in addition to the total number of visits from 2010 to 2018. The super efficiency SBM results identified that the sample's average score was between 0.651 and 3.244, with an average of 1.041, of which 15 cities had not reached data envelopment analysis effectiveness. According to the Malmquist index, the average total factor productivity index of Sichuan Province was 0.930, which showed an imbalance in resource input, and its fluctuation was mainly related to the technological progress index and scale efficiency. The efficiency score was affected by the average annual income of residents, population density and education level. Conclusions The amount of health resource allocation in Sichuan Province had shown an overall upward trend since 2010. However, resource allocation efficiency was not high, and there were problems such as significant regional differences, insufficient technological innovation capabilities and unscientific allocation of resource scale. To optimize the resource allocation structure, we suggest that the relevant departments pay attention to the impact of natural disasters, the average annual income of residents, population density and education level on efficiency to allocate health resources scientifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the differences in productivity performance between exporting and non-exporting manufacturing firms in Ecuador during the period 2007–2018, using two underexplored industry classifications in this analysis: the Pavitt Taxonomy and the OECD technological intensity classification. We estimate total factor productivity (TFP) at the firm level with a modified (Gandhi, Navarro, and Rivers 2020) approach that allows us to use an additional state variable and endogenize the law of motion for productivity, which allows the past decision about exporting to affect future productivity. This approach captures the static and dynamic gains (learning-by-exporting) in productivity from exporting. Moreover, we test self-selection on the entry and exit sides of the market, and show a robustness check of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis by using a difference-in-difference matching estimator. Our results indicate that exporters have better productivity performance than non-exporters. We find evidence in favor of the self-selection on the entry and exit sides of the market. Finally, we show there are dynamic gains in productivity from exporting, supporting the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether access to the capital market of convertible and nonconvertible bonds affects total factor productivity (TFP) for the population of Italian joint stock manufacturing companies, based in highly segmented local financial markets, between 2007 and 2017. The hypothesis, well grounded in the literature, is that long‐term capital favors investment in intangibles and other risky assets necessary for productivity growth. To identify this effect, we exploit the exogenous shock of the Italian banking deregulation of the mid‐1990s as an instrument for firm‐level access to capital, interacted with distance from logistic networks. These reforms changed the distribution of the type of branches at the local level, increasing the share of joint stock banks, which have high connections to international capital markets. This geographical reallocation of banking activities ultimately affected firms' financial structure, favouring their access to capital, even when based in peripheral financial areas. Firms which issued instruments of market debt achieved higher levels of productivity and a higher probability to reach top percentiles of productivity distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research is to analyze the implications on the level of productivity in a prototype company of the automotive electrical sector classified in section 335920 of the Classification System for North America (INEGI, 2018), due to the adoption of the IATF-16949 standard. The methodological strategy is quantitative, with a correlational scope and experimental design; it was developed from a comparative study using an analysis of variance with a significance level of 95% (a=0.05) for the indicators level of waste, operational availability, compliance with specifications and on-time deliveries. Among the main findings, it was corroborated that a quality management system linked to control tools under the automotive standard IATF-16949, improves organizational productivity and increases the General Productivity Index, a condition that favors the detection, prevention and treatment of critical control points in all phases of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article substantiates that environmental sustainability is an important component of food system sustainability and resilience of states, which actualizes the need to develop new methodological approaches to its comprehensive assessment. It has been proposed to use indicators of resource and environmental productivity of gross value added (general and sectoral) to assess environmental sustainability in Ukraine, which allow to determine the ability of macro- and meso-level economic systems to produce value added with a neutral or positive impact on the environment in the conditions of resource constraints, challenges and threats to the security environment. It has been proved that the basic elements, the functioning of which should be ensured by the implemented national resilience system, have an environmental dimension. The study provides a comprehensive assessment of trends in resource use (on the example of water, energy and land resources) by sectors of the Ukrainian economy on the basis of environmental sustainability and sustainable development. The assessment of water resources consumption revealed both positive and negative trends, which indicates uneven progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The dynamics of the group of general indicators characterizing water use efficiency is positive. In the reporting year, the lowest levels of sectoral water productivity of gross value added were in the electricity sector and agriculture. The assessment of the sustainable use of energy resources in Ukraine showed a low level of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2020, the highest level of energy productivity of gross value added was inherent in agriculture, and the lowest in the energy and water supply sectors. A comprehensive assessment of land use revealed multi-vector trends in sustainable development. In the pre-war period, there was a significant increase in the volume of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers applied and the area of organic land. The organic market is characterized by a dominant export orientation of domestic organic raw materials and a low degree of their processing in Ukraine. The expected trends in resource use in the wartime and postwar periods have been determined through the prism of strategic priorities of postwar state development. In the post-war period, as economic entities resume their activities, a moderate increase in the consumption of water and energy resources, renewed growth trends in water and energy productivity of GDP, and electricity production from renewable sources in accordance with the priorities of the country's "green" transition have been expected. Sustainability of the domestic organic market will be facilitated by the formation of sustainable closed farm-to-table systems in line with the objectives of the European Green Deal, as well as the organization of processing of organic raw materials for the needs of domestic and foreign markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pulses, supplemented with cereals, provide a perfect mix of vegetarian protein of high biological value. The productivity of pulses in India is less than half of the productivity levels in the USA and Canada. Present investigation was aimed to Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth in three pulse crops in the state of Rajasthan from 2000-01 to 2017-18. Methods: In the current study, the Tornqvist Theil Index was used to compute the total output index, total input index and total factor productivity index. The Tornqvist Index is exact for the homogenous translog production function that can deliver a second order approximation to an arbitrary twice differentiable homogenous production function. The translog function does not require perfect substitutes for inputs. If the relative price of input increases, the producer decreases its use (substituting other inputs) until all marginal productivities are proportional to the new prices. Result: The results of this study has indicates low TFP in gram (0.98%) despite a 59.23 per cent share in the total pulse output of the state. The annual compound growth rate of TFP of black gram increased at the rate of 1.11 per cent per annum (moderate growth) and the contribution of TFP to output growth was low; at about 41.63. Whereas, the compound growth rate of TFP of annual green gram crop increased at the 2.38 per cent per annum (high growth) while its TFP to output growth was about 66.43 per cent. The real cost of production of gram, black gram and green gram crop increased by 0.77, 1.49 and 1.57 per cent per annum, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to test the role of infrastructure for economic growth. For this purpose, panel data of the world is selected from 1998 to 2018 and the study has used slope moderator to test the productivity of real economic activity with economic growth. Design/methodology/approach: In this context, the feasible generalized least square method is adopted to estimate the results. Four types of infrastructure indicators i.e. quality of air, port, rail and road are used along with disaggregated GDP. Findings: According to the results of this study, the role of industrial and agricultural value addition without infrastructure is negative. For industrial value addition, the cross product with all infrastructure types positively impacts economic growth. All the infrastructures, along with services value addition, except seaport, are contributing to economic growth positively. Along with agriculture value addition, only road infrastructure is contributing to economic growth positively. This study has also used two control variables i.e. quality of education and institutions. These variables are also found to be positive and significant with economic growth. Originality/value: This study explores the moderating role of quality of infrastructure sector on real sector productivity, which is leading to economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The purpose of this study is to compute surgical total factor productivity with Malmquist index, and to evaluate the effects of states of emergency against the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on its productivity change. We hypothesized that the states of emergency significantly reduced surgical total factor productivity in Japan.Methods: The authors collected data from all the surgical procedures performed in Teikyo University Hospital from April 1 through September 30 in 2019-21. Non-radial and non-oriented Malmquist model under the variable returns-to-scale assumptions was employed. The decision making unit (DMU) was defined as a surgical specialty department. Inputs were defined as (1) the number of medical doctors who assisted surgery, and (2) the duration of surgical operation from skin incision to closure. The output was defined as the surgical fee for each surgery. The study period was divided into fifty-one ten- (or eleven-) day periods. We added all the inputs and outputs of the surgical procedures for each DMU during these study periods, and computed its Malmquist index, efficiency change and technical change.Results: Seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-one surgical procedures were analyzed. The overall productivity and efficiency progressed significantly both during states of emergency and during no states of emergency. Our subgroup analysis demonstrated that there were no surgical specialties that had significantly different productivity, efficiency or technical changes between states of emergency and no states of emergency.Conclusions: We demonstrated that the surgical productivity did not suffer despite the states of emergency against the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the association between productivity growth and job reallocation in terms of job creation and job destruction. It also finds this productivity employment relationship for heterogeneous labor market institutions of the Indian states. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses longitudinal data of the Annual Survey of Industries of Indian manufacturing from 2009–2010 to 2015–2016 and employs fixed-effect multinomial logistic regression. Findings: The paper finds a mixed result of total factor productivity (TFP) increase on employment. An increase in TFP is positively associated with employment by reducing the probability of destroying jobs, while adversely associated with employment by reducing the probability of creating jobs. The negative association of the increase in TFP on employment is more in the Indian states with strict labor regulations. Research limitations/implications: The relationship between TFP and employment can be endogenous. TFP is calculated as output changes that are not explained by inputs, capital and labor. So, job creation/destruction may affect TFP by changing the composition of employment and/or returns on labor/capital. In addition, this study is only restricted to Indian organized manufacturing. Practical implications: The results from this study help deeply understand the Indian labor market. In particular, it provides valuable insights into the "jobless growth" in Indian manufacturing and the recent changes in labor laws. Social implications: The findings from this study provide useful information to enhance the robust growth of productive jobs and efficient reallocation of labor. Originality/value: Unlike most papers, which analyzed the relationship between productivity growth and net employment changes, the present paper finds the relationship between improvement in productivity and job reallocation in terms of simultaneous creation of new jobs and destruction of existing jobs. In addition, the paper links this relationship with the existing heterogeneous labor laws of the Indian states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the dynamic impact of GVCs on productivity growth in 14 Asian economies, from 1995 to 2016. OECD and Asia Productivity Organisation data show that in the last few decades there has been a rapid expansion of GVCs in the majority of the Asian economies. We employ the panel Auto-regressive Distributed Lag method to empirically evaluate the impact of GVCs participation on 'total factor productivity growth' and 'labor productivity growth'. The empirical results point to the significant effect of GVCs on domestic productivity growth in the long run in the selected Asian economies, while the effect on labor productivity growth is larger than that on total factor productivity growth. However, GVCs does not affect it in the short-run. If excluded the six high-income economies and only focused on the middle-income countries, we find forward GVCs promotes domestic productivity in long run, while the backward GVCs does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous improvement objective is increase productivity, add value to processes and add points to company competitiveness. Lean Manufacturing and 5's (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain, for its Japanese origin) technique promote interest on the workers, as a principal actor at the search for reducing delays, optimizing operations, and gradually reduce or eliminate any failure arising from the activities. Promoting the use of lean production tools, this research, in a descriptive way, design a guide for application of the Japanese technique, seeking that companies obtain benefits by prevent and control errors that generate cost overruns. The design was tested in a company located in Bogota city, in which are identified deficiencies in factors like order, cleanliness, discipline, among others. The results that stand out with implementation are the productivity increase and expenses decrease due to bad practices and / or reprocessing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Changes in productivity of small and large firms of automotive industry are analyzed. • The 2008-09 crisis impacted on productivity by reducing technological progress. • The consequences of the crisis were more severe for SMEs. • Suitable policies may be based on environmental regulation, incentive schemes and support to R&D investments. This paper analyzes the changes in productivity of small and large firms operating in the automotive industry in France, Italy and Spain, occurred during the pre-crisis (2001-2008) and post-crisis (2009-2014) periods. To this aim, the Malmquist index as a measure of total factor productivity (TFP) variation is computed, by using the non-parametric technique DEA, integrated by a bootstrap technique proposed by Simar and Wilson (1999). The analysis allows distinguishing among different possible sources of TFP changes, i.e. pure technical efficiency change, scale efficiency change and technological change. The latter comes up to be the main channel through which the global crisis negatively impacted on productivity, presumably by hampering the primary engines of technological change, i.e. research, innovation and investment through reduced availability of financial resources for SMEs, worsened perspectives for firm growth and greater concentration in selected geographical areas of investments by parent companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 decimated global tourism. As governments and firms strategize the sector's recovery, insights from the sector's prepandemic period of high growth offer useful policy lessons. This study examines the drivers of the tourism sector's growth and catch-up performance in 13 industrialized economies over the period 2000–2015, using data from the EU-KLEMS database. The findings have three notable policy implications. First, the tourism sector in most countries experienced significant growth. However, value-added growth was driven largely by labor employment expansion while labor productivity declined in most countries. Second, weak investment in non–information and communications technology (ICT) capital and declining total factor productivity are the principal impediments to labor productivity growth. Third, all countries embraced digital transformation but many lagged on innovation and labor quality. These findings are analyzed to identify policy strategies for the tourism sector's postpandemic recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender gap in agricultural productivity has been of ongoing interest to development policy and we revisit the subject in the context of groundnut, an important food and cash legume in Sub Saharan Africa. We address production technology differences between male and female managers of groundnut plots and examine the implications for the male–female difference in productivity. Using cross-sectional data, two recent stochastic meta-frontier (SMF) techniques are coupled with statistical matching to examine gender-related technology, managerial, single and total factor productivity (TFP) gaps. The results reveal different production technologies in use by male and female producers, and technology (6–7 per cent points) and managerial (3–5 per cent points) differentials, which translate into significant male advantages in land productivity (6.2 per cent) and TFP (15.3 per cent). A heterogeneity analysis provides valuable insights: Technology, managerial and TFP gaps, which favour male managers, decrease with age, years of schooling, exposure to extension, and use of hired labour and improved seeds; but increase with total cultivated area. Closing the productivity gap will require expanding female production possibilities through use of improved inputs and practices and enhancing managerial skill and know-how through extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to model the link between productivity, relocation cost and corruption by applying game theory. Firms sometimes compete with one another through the bribes that they offer authorities in exchange for special privileges. Provinces are also in competition with another to retain and attract investors. The optimization problem identifies what fraction of revenue is optimal for a bribe so that both firms and authorities can optimize their outcomes. We have proven that corruption is the equilibrium outcome. Notably, the bribe rate as a share of revenue should decrease as firms' productivity enhances, especially for those who are able to relocate to other provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using detailed data on veterinary, ecological, sanitary, phytosanitary and mandatory certification measures, this paper studies the effect of non‐tariff measures (NTMs) on firm productivity in the food‐processing industry through forward and backward linkages. Using quantity and value of output at product level, we calculate and compare quantity‐ and revenue‐based measures of total factor productivity (TFP). Exploiting the episode of NTM liberalisation in Ukraine in 2008–2012, we find that NTMs on intermediate inputs have a negative effect on quantity‐based TFP. Other trade policy variables, including input tariffs and output NTMs also negatively influence productivity. The effect on the revenue‐based TFP is weaker due to price and quality adjustments. Interacting changes in input NTMs with import intensity prior to trade liberalisation, we find that firms that used imported inputs more intensively tend to have lower long‐run TFP growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a tool to build climate change scenarios to forecast Gross Domestic Product (GDP), modelling both GDP damage due to climate change and the GDP impact of mitigating measures. It adopts a supply-side, long-term view, with 2060 and 2100 horizons. It is a global projection tool (30 countries/regions), with assumptions and results both at the world and the country/regional level. Five different types of energy inputs are taken into account according to their CO 2 emission factors. Full calibration is possible at each stage, with estimated or literature-based default parameters. Compared to other models, it provides a comprehensive modelisation of Total Factor Productivity (TFP), which is the most significant determinant of the GDP projected path. We present simulation results of different energy policy scenarios. They illustrate both the "tragedy of the horizon" and the "tragedy of the commons", which call for a policy framework that adequately integrates a long run perspective, through a low-enough discount rate and an effective intergenerational solidarity as well as international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction firms in developing economies have started to explore the global market. However, whether internationalization can improve their productivity growth in the long run needs to be considered. Moreover, rapid changes in institutional environments and different ownership concentrations in developing economies can contribute to different outcomes. This study established models that examine the impact of internationalization on total factor productivity (TFP), TFP's components, and the profitability of 86 construction firms in Malaysia from 2003 to 2016 by applying the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. The results showed that internationalization reduced firm productivity during Malaysia's lack of promarket phase of 2003–2009 but became negligible during the more promarket phase of 2010–2016. The negative impact was due to scale inefficiency. The effect of regulatory control and family ownership concentration reduced the negative impact of internationalization, whereas capital availability, foreign debt, price control freedom, and government ownership negatively affected the impact of internationalization on firm productivity. This study is the first to explore the impact of internationalization on TFP's components. It contributes to management in the engineering domain by extending insights into the effect of institutional environments, institutional dimensions, and ownership concentrations on the impact of internationalization on firm productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an industrial process, productivity is a basic concern. A combination of production input, namely employment, labour cost, energy and raw material cost, result in value addition expressed as value-added. The effective role of each input in the manufacturing process can be assessed through the influence of variables involved. Pearson's correlation coefficients show various degrees of effects through interrelationships of variables and bring out the outstanding or relatively more important role of one or more variables (inputs) in specific combinations in the manufacturing process. The paper in hand analyses the interrelationship of structuring variables in the major groups of manufacturing in Karachi using Pearson's correlation measurement techniques. The role of the variables has been assessed through sets of ten correlations in each of the six major industrial categories. The results of the analyses show the leading or the dominant contribution of the variables towards value addition and productivity. In the case of the textile industry, strong correlations are indicated between Value Added (VA) and 'Other Cost' (OC) and Average Daily Employment (ADE) and Employment Cost (EC) and also VA and ADE. For chemical and chemical products strong correlation exist between VA and OC, OC and IC (industrial cost) and ADE and EC. In respect of the wearing apparel category, a strong correlation occur between OC and IC, VA and OC, ADE and EC. Basic metal industry shows strong correlation in all ten sets of relationships, thus every variable exercising an equal influence. The food and beverage group has only two strong correlations that are VA and OC, IC, and OC. In the case of motor vehicles and trailers, strong relationships are indicated by all sets of correlation ship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. This work was to contribute to the zoning of lettuce cultivation in the Bogotá savannah and to generate a diagnostic of the current state of chemical fertility of the soils used. Material and methods. For this purpose, soil sampling was applied visiting 31 lettuce growers' farms. Samples were analyzed for chemical fertility and based on their location; the corresponding class was determined according to their capacity for agricultural use. Zoning was made by combining three map layers: municipalities, water access for agriculture and soil aptitude. Subsequently, it was statistically analyzed whether soil classes and units contributed to explain the differences in chemical fertility levels. Finally, principal component analysis was carried out defining whether there were contrasting factors that would facilitate the identification of fertility problems. Results. Reflected high nutrient concentration and imbalances between K/Mg and Ca/K ratios that may affect K availability to plants. Two soil subclass were found: IVhs and lie; the first with higher electrical conductivity and lower potassium concentration than the second. Two factors generated contrasting conditions: salinity and the effect of organic matter on the availability of some nutrients. There were no differences between soil units in crop yield (mean 52.8 t/ha). Conclusion. There are 25 000 ha apt to lettuce cultivation in Bogota plateau, but some areas have nutrient excess and salinity risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once a firm enters a foreign market, its productivity should increase thanks to the exposure to new knowledge and experience abroad. We test this hypothesis of 'learning-by-exporting' by scrutinising export experience while controlling for self-selection effect. To measure learning, previous studies rely on productivity before- and after exporting, or on previous export participation, and so do not consider the evolving experience of exporting firms. In contrast, we use 'export age' – the number of years a firm is engaged in exporting activities. Based on Indonesian firm-level data from 2000 to 2012, we find that exporter's productivity increases with export age, but the effect decreases once the firm becomes more experienced. Such effect is larger for relatively bigger firms and for those in certain industries in the footloose, capital-intensive sectors, such as motor vehicles and chemicals production. A policy implication of our study is that easier export procedure and access to information about foreign markets will be beneficial for firms, especially the new exporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competitiveness of modern companies depends today on the ability to implement digitised technologies into production processes in human-friendly ways. The aim of this paper is to analyse ethical aspects of human-cobot cooperation in industrial production and to design a process standard aimed at ensuring an ethically stable cooperative workplace. The scientific contribution of this study lies in the identification and definition of standardized parameters of the ethics of the production process in the workplace. Based on the analysis of cooperative workplaces in 250 industrial companies, a code of ethics has been defined, i.e. a process standard that determines the navigation of the design by selected optimization criteria necessary for setting up a hybrid workplace defined as human and cobot (collaborative robot) with the support of digitised technologies. In the presented results and the final discussion attention is devoted to the need to radically change the philosophy of workplace standardization in the sense of equal access to workload settings by humans and robots. In the process of standardization, it is necessary to consider the difference in the standardization of human jobs and cobot jobs: the thinking process. In modern industrial companies the need has arisen to create working standards that take into account the adaptive ability of cobots and adapt the cobots' workflow to human needs concerning performance and productivity. The presented results include recommendations for industrial companies to develop an ethical and stable production workplace based on an adequately defined form of cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A simple indicator of technical efficiency, such as productivity of health workers, measured using routine health facility data, can be a practical approach that can inform initiatives to improve efficiency in low- and middle-income countries. This paper presents a proof of concept of using routine information from primary healthcare (PHC) facilities to measure health workers' productivity and its application in three regions of Ethiopia.Methods: In four steps, we constructed a productivity measure of the health workforce of Health Centers (HCs) and demonstrated its practical application: (1) developing an analytical dataset using secondary data from health management information systems (HMIS) and human resource information system (HRIS); (2) principal component analysis and factor analysis to estimate a summary measure of output from five indicators (annual service volume of outpatient visits, family planning, first antenatal care visits, facility-based deliveries by skilled birth attendants, and children [< 1 year] with three pentavalent vaccines); (3) calculating a productivity score by combining the summary measure of outputs and the total number of health workers (input), and (4) implementing regression models to identify the determinant of productivity and ranking HCs based on their adjusted productivity score.Results: We developed an analytical dataset of 1128 HCs; however, significant missing values and outliers were reported in the data. The principal component and factor scores developed from the five output measures were highly consistent (correlation coefficient = 0.98). We considered the factor score as the summary measure of outputs for estimating productivity. A very weak association was observed between the summary measure of output and the total number of staff. The result also highlighted a large variability in productivity across similar health facilities in Ethiopia, represented by the significant dispersion in summary measure of output occurring at similar levels of the health workers.Conclusions: We successfully demonstrated the analytical steps to estimate health worker productivity and its practical application using HMIS and HRIS. The methodology presented in this study can be readily applied in low- and middle-income countries using widely available data-such as DHIS2-that will allow further explorations to understand the causes of technical inefficiencies in the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is expected that this research will contribute to the economic literature on the importance of evaluating the impact of public policies in order to improve the allocation of financial resources as well as contribute to the productivity and efficiency of companies. For this, the REINDUS program has been taken as a reference, one of the most representative instruments of industrial policy in Spain, which grants, among others, soft loans to companies with the purpose of promoting industrial development through business improvement and efficiency of the productive sectors. The period analyzed includes calls between 2009 and 2014, based on 689 SMEs with required information. Therefore, the objective of this research is focused on advancing in the specification about the usefulness of soft loans, as an instrument of industrial policy, from the perspective of productivity and efficiency, in this way, it will be possible to contribute to the development of indicators and policies for monitoring and adapting the aid programs to companies, in order to optimize the allocation of these resources and generate the desired effects in the various public policies to support the development of the business fabric in Spain. To study the improvement of productivity through the total change of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP), the Malmquist Index, initially introduced in the context of the consumer theory by Malmquist (1953), and the decompositions of Färe, Grosskopf et al. (1989, 1994) that assumed constant returns to scale using data envelopment analysis techniques, DEA (Orea and Zofío, 2017). Following this decomposition, we can calculate: (i) the productivity behavior (malmquist), (ii) the change in efficiency (effch), (iii) the technological change (tech). Färe, Grosskopf et al. (1994), provided the decomposition of efficiency into scale efficiency (out / in-.scalech) and into pure efficiency change (pure.out / in.effch), finally, following Färe, Grifell-Tatjé et al. (1997), we can obtain the marginal rate of substitution (input-biased technical change -ibtech-) and the marginal rate of product transformation (output-biased technical change -obtech-) in presence of technological change and the magnitude of technical change -matech-. To perform the necessary matching for the proposed analysis and because we are facing a quasi-experimental design, a combination of techniques is proposed, such as the analysis of Differences in Differences and the Matching by Nearby Neighbors using Mahalanobis Distance, to try to reduce the risk of bias in the estimation, since simple matching cannot account for unobservable characteristics (Pérez and Moral, 2015). To match the control and treatment groups, a model is used in which the criteria of financial capacity prevail, widely recognized by the literature on credit risk as determining factors when establishing the financing capacity of companies. The analysis of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and its components in the study period, shows that the treated companies reduced their productivity on average, for example, the treated companies in the 2009 call shown a reduction in the TFP (malmquist) between 2012 and 2008 of 9%, while in the control companies the reduction was 7%. In the best case, call 2014, practically the same level of productivity was maintained among those treated (loss of 1% between 2013 and 2017). It was expected, therefore, that the investments made would have a positive effect on productivity, however, the results show the opposite, in fact, if technological change (tech) is observed, which implies a shift of the production frontier, presented a significant setback, it is striking, since it was the one that most contributed to the negative variation of the TFP in the analyzed period. The improvements came from positive changes in efficiency (effch), probably motivated by the reduction in wage costs after the crisis of 2007 and in line with the evolution of the labor market and the destruction of jobs in these years. Following the Färe decomposition, Grifell - Tatjé et al. (1997) we calculated the alternative directions of the bias of the inputs in the technological change. The STAF / FIAS input pair presented a bias towards the use fixed assets compared to savings in personnel expenses in the treated companies when technological change occurs, the same occurs with the treated companies in the FIAS / MATE relation, To the extent that this input is used, it generates savings in the production needed materials. In general, the impact of the program did not show a positive effect within the treated companies compared to the control companies, in fact, there were setbacks in productivity (malmquist), mainly due to the technological setback (tech-frontier shift), which was largely offset by change in efficiency (effch-catch up). This technological decrease supposes a deviation from the policy objectives on the results obtained, therefore, emphasis will have to be placed on carrying out an exhaustive analysis of possible agency conflicts within the companies, on adjustment costs not contemplated in the policy, the amount of the loans and the execution of the projects proposed in such a way that the disbursements are subject to milestones that guarantee their execution. It is proposed to design a monitoring strategy based on information technologies to facilitate and promote feedback on the objectives that allows managers to have up-to-date, quality, and robust information, recognizing that such responsibility also falls on the beneficiaries of the policy, since it is a public instrument on which companies must be accountable to society, making it a fundamental requirement to provide periodic information by the beneficiary to monitor the progress of the investments contemplated in the investment projects contributed in the time of application. Likewise, greater involvement is required from the managing entity in the realization of the business plans, mainly in the actions immediately after the disbursement, as carried out by private investment funds. This work contributes to the economic literature a detailed analysis about the impact of the soft loans of the REINDUS program on the productivity and efficiency of the companies in the period 2009 to 2014, identifying the sources of the observed change on which the policy objectives can be adjusted to maximize its effectiveness, there is no previous work in this regard. The main limitation of this work was presented in the information available for the realization of the paper. The aid Managing Administration (Dirección General de Industria y de la Pyme in 2017) refers to the Boletín Oficial del Estado where the results of the respective calls are published as the only source of information available to third parties, with the limitation that this implies. It was not until the results of the 2016 call that the rejected companies began to be published and in 2018 the scores obtained by the companies benefited exclusively, which indicates that there is a path to consolidate the institutionalization of the impact evaluation of public policies within of the Public Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of market distortions in the manufacturing sector in Morocco. Recent microdata are used to calculate the extent of resource misallocation associated to these distortions and the potential total factor productivity (TFP) gain resulting from their removal. Market distortions in the manufacturing sector in Morocco are higher compared with developed countries and slightly more important compared with other developing countries, such as China and India. These distortions decreased between 2007 and 2013. Full liberalization would raise TFP by about 84%. If distortions are removed to the level of selected developed countries with better resource allocation, the increase in TFP would be of 56%. The paper also suggests that industries that are more opened to competition such as textiles industries present lower levels of market distortions compared with more protected industries with relatively little competition, such as the food industry. Besides, some evidence is provided showing that smaller firms face more extensive distortions compared to medium and larger firms. The main results of the paper are robust to an alternative estimation that uses a different methodological framework with a less extensive theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this work has focused on extending the existing literature on the analysis of total factor productivity of the Health Care Centers (HCC) of the Community of Madrid (Spain) in the period 2015-2017, with two important contributions; the application and comparison of the Malmquist indices with two robust methodologies such as the Hicks-Moorsteen and Färe Primont indices which, except for error, have not been previously used in this sector and the regional scope, which has been scarcely analyzed. The main results reveal decreases in HC productivity due to the three proposed methodologies. These decreases range between 4.90% and 0.25% for the Färe-Primont and Hicks- Moorsteen indices respectively between 2015/17 in average terms. Convergence analyses confirm that this takes place in the case of the Malmquist and Hicks- Moorsteen proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth and total factor productivity (TFP) using data for 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa during the period 1980–2014. The main findings reveal that the direct effect of FDI on both economic growth and TFP is largely negative. Furthermore, the results suggest that the influence of financial development and human capital accumulation on the effect of FDI is negligible. The paper proposes policy considerations to facilitate the potential role of financial access and human capital in exerting a positive impact of FDI on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the significance of export market destinations for productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. We use matching and difference-in-differences techniques to evaluate these questions. We find that exports generate productivity growth among exporters, with the more productive firms exporting to multiple markets. We also find that changes in export markets are as a result of firm-level productivity growth suggesting that firms will sell products to additional markets if their productivity level increases hence the changes in export markets are correlated with productivity growth. Moreover, we find that exporting to multiple markets raises the firm's productivity growth by 42.3%, higher than exporting to only one export market at a time. These findings hold at the country and industry level and are robust to other factors that may correlate with increased productivity like age, size and ownership. At the policy level, policies on export promotion should provide information on how prospective exporters can enter into African export markets. Firms that have started exporting should be helped with credit access to expand their sales to other additional export markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productivity in the company is essential for growth and sustain their business. However, not all companies are productive at the same level. Lack of managerial skills or weal individual work practices along with negative social environment will negatively impact any companies' productivity. Drawing the related link to increase workers' productivity the model has been developed in the study to test the impact of several variables influencing positively or negatively workers' productivity. The investigated model explained the impact of managerial skills, individual work practices and social environment on productivity with control variable work experience. The data have been collected among managers and executive managers of small and medium companies. However, the result shows that managerial skills impact workers productivity along with individual workers practices and social environment. International experience plays a medium effect to improve workers productivity with 41 percent of combined together earlier mentioned variables. Also the result has shown that more experienced workers resist more negative environment at work than less experienced workers. A practical implication of this study is that managers should pay attention to the social environment at work to improve workers' productivity. Provide some specific training to develop and improve skills at work will have an impact on productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various nonstructural models of productivity growth have been proposed in the literature. In either class of models, predictive measurements of productivity and efficiency are obtained. The different approaches to productivity and efficiency measurement all have their merits. However, they generate different results and it is in principle impossible to know which of them produces "true" estimates. We argue that instead of choosing between approaches, the analyst can average across the results generated by them. Unfortunately, this begs the question which averaging method to use? This paper examines the model averaging approaches of Hansen and Racine (2012), which can provide a vehicle to weight predictions (in the form of productivity and efficiency measurements) from different nonstructural methods. We first describe the jackknife model averaging estimator proposed by Hansen and Racine (2012) and illustrate how to apply the technique to a set of competing stochastic frontier estimators. The derived method is then used to analyze productivity and efficiency dynamics in 25 high-industrialized countries over the period 1990 to 2014. Through the empirical application, we show that the model averaging method provides relatively stable estimates, in comparison to standard model selection methods that simply select one model with the highest measure of goodness of fit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To promote the dissemination of Positive Selection (PS) technology for quality seed yam production, this study was undertaken to provide empirical evidence and to examine differences in the Total Factor Productivity resulting from the use of PS technology. Through multistage sampling, 368 CAY-Seed beneficiaries from Ghana and Nigeria were sampled. Results indicate that productivity of PS technology was 0.758 as compared to 0.700 for non-use of PS. Furthermore, the use of PS also led to a reduction in technology gap by 2.3%. The most important factors of seed yam productivity were: land, seed, labour, chemical and neem leaf powder application with sex, experience, education, cropping system and extension as the inefficiency determinants. It is therefore recommended that the PS technology should be widely disseminated with policies to reduce inefficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the emerging literature investigating agglomeration externalities in developing countries and focuses on the less studied differences between the formal and the informal sector. Using establishment‐level data and instrumental variable estimations, we find that both formal and informal establishments benefit from agglomeration externalities. We provide evidence that informal establishment total factor productivity (TFP) increases more with city size than formal establishment TFP. We also provide causal evidence on the source of agglomeration externalities by formality status by examining industry coagglomeration pairs and instrumenting with data on Columbian input–output and labor industry–pair relationships. We find little evidence of benefits from stronger input–output relationships at the city level, but substantial benefits associated with shared labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total factor productivity represents a dimension of output that cannot be attributed to factors of production; it is unique to the firm, and central to its competitiveness. We posit that ownership structure plays a key role in productivity. However, ownership structure has an effect on productivity which changes with a firm's age. Ownership structure that is optimal for new firms may not be optimal for older firms. We here consider the impact of ownership structure as defined by shares of individuals' versus (broadly defined) institutional ownership. Our empirical counterpart draws on the UK company data for 2008-2017, obtained from the Orbis database. Our key explanatory variables are the joint share of the individual owners in equity and its square, but we also control concentration of ownership indices, along with a range of other firm-level characteristics. Applying fixed effects models along with instrumenting ownership with regional level variables, we found that new companies with majority individual owners and minority institutional owners outperform others. As firms age, however, these differences begin to disappear, with individual owners losing their control-related advantage. The results of the relative advantage of individual owners in the early stage is consistent with the property rights theory, which emphasises that residual control rights should remain with those whose investment is critical. It can be argued, however, that for whom the investment is critical changes as firm ages. Our managerial implications emphasise ownership competence in optimising ownership structure, which should evolve along the stages of the life-cycle of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates long-term output using two distinct theoretical approaches. The first is the demand-led growth approach. In this approach, two long-term output models are estimated: that of Shaikh and Moudud (2004), with a modification to capture demand-driven technical change in the Kaldorian sense (Kaldor, 1957); and that of Thirlwall (1979), according to which the theoretical long-term growth rates of the economy are determined by export growth rates. The second approach is the neoclassical approach of Solow (1956) and Swan (1956). In this approach, long-term growth is limited by supply factors (the factors of production capital and labor). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, most of the countries need a strong health system to improve their health outcomes. This situation makes the measurement of health system productivity a current issue in order to strengthen the health system. The aim of the study isto analyse the health system productivity of Asian countries with non-parametric methods. The study encompasses 44 Asian countries. In the study, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is utilised to measure the technical efficiency of countries' health systems;super efficiency analysis is used to rank the productive countries among themselves, and the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index (MTFPI) is used to understand the change in efficiency over time. In addition, regression and cluster analyses, which are parametric methods, are applied to interpret the productivity results. When the DEA findings are examined; the mean technical, allocation and scale efficiency scores of Asian countries' productivity analysis for 2016 are found to be 0.764, 0.834 and 0.922, respectively According to MTFPI findings, it is observed that the average total factor productivity of Asian countries does not increase and has a value of 0.963. It is determined that this is due to 0.2% decrease in pure efficiency change and 5.9% decrease in technology. As a result, according to DEA analysis, 72.73% of Asian countries are found to be inefficient. It might be suggested that studies should be carried out in order for countries to use health inputs efficiently in a way that does not negatively affect health outcomes, and states should formulate policies in which health expenditures can be reduced while increasing the quality in health field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth and productivity in sectors of the Visegrad Group one decade after their accession to the EU. In order to account for sample heterogeneity, as well as productivity differences, we construct a generalized true random-effects model with varying efficiency distribution. We find that FDI has a positive impact on the Visegrad Group's sectors and that its effectiveness depends upon the technological gap between the host and home economy. There are three sources of this positive impact: (i) sectoral output and labour productivity growth, (ii) more effective use of input factors, and via (iii) higher efficiency component of the total factor productivity (TFP). These sources form a three-way transmission mechanism through which FDI can impact economic growth conditioned upon FDI effectiveness due to the technological gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relevance of enhancing information and communication technology (ICT) on dynamics of total factor productivity (TFP) in 25 sub-Saharan African countries using data covering the period 1980–2014. The empirical evidence is based on the Generalised Method of Moments. The following main findings are established. First, while enhancing ICT overwhelmingly has net positive effects on productivity, the corresponding marginal effects are negative. Second, an extended analysis is performed to establish thresholds for complementary policies. These thresholds are: 100% mobile phone penetration for TFP; between 101.214% and 101.419% mobile phone penetration for welfare TFP and 15% internet penetration for welfare real TFP. It follows that approximately 100% mobile penetration and 15% internet penetration are thresholds at which ICT should be complemented with other macroeconomic policies for favorable outcomes on productivity dynamics. Other policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]