Search results for "PRODUCTIVITY"
showing 10 items of 618 documents
The impact of globalization on regional development and competitiveness: cases of selected regions
2019
International audience; The objective of this study is to conduct an analysis of regional development and competitiveness in the EU and Latvia under current conditions of economic globalization. This paper makes an attempt to evaluate a theory of regional development and regional competitiveness concept in relation to regional competitiveness in the light of current global economic changes. The authors emphasise that the regional development is based on competitive advantages, which has been a subject of fundamental research by Michal Porter and that serves as a basis for the current scientific methodology to assess competitiveness of regions and countries. The authors support a view of man…
Regionalna specjalizacja produkcji rolnej w Polsce
2016
Agriculture is a very specific sector of the economy, significantly different from other economic activities. One of the main distinguishing characteristics of agricultural production is its nature and strong dependence on the environmental conditions. These conditions determine to a large extent, the nature of agricultural production and its structure (crop/animal). The accession of Poland to the EU in 2004 and access to EU funds (subsidies for farmers under different EU programs) often were the cause of change in the current profile of farm activities. Therefore, it seems reasonable to examine the changes in the specialization of agricultural production in Poland after 2004. The aim of th…
Comparing changes in productivity among private water companies integrating quality of service: A metafrontier approach
2019
Abstract Most previous studies evaluating the effect of ownership on the performance of water companies have ignored the fact that there are several types of private water companies. In this study, we instead recognize that private water companies can differ considerably in how they are managed, based on whether their infrastructure is privately or publicly owned. We estimated change in productivity of fully-privatized companies and concessionary companies by employing the metafrontier Malmquist Luenberger productivity (MMLP) index, which allowed us to integrate quality-of-service variables as undesirable outputs. We segregated the MMLP index to assess changes over time in relative efficien…
Development and application of the Hicks-Moorsteen productivity index for the total factor productivity assessment of wastewater treatment plants
2015
Abstract The assessment of the productivity change in wastewater treatment plants is essential to improve performance and reduce operational costs. Several indices are available to compute unit productivity, however some assessments are more reliable than others. In the absence of price data, the Malmquist productivity index is the most commonly applied; but it does not maintain total factor productivity properties under variable returns to scale technology. Hence, Malmquist productivity index is not a suitable index to compute total factor productivity change in wastewater treatment plants. The present study served to overcome such limitations by calculating, for the first time, total fact…
Productivity growth of wastewater treatment plants – accounting for environmental impacts: a Malmquist-Luenberger index approach
2015
As the number of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has increased, the economic considerations associated with their management have become more relevant. Measuring the productivity of WWTPs allows the best practice to be identified and resource use to be optimized. Previous studies assessing the productivity change of WWTPs have ignored undesirable outputs; thus, wastewater treatment was considered to be free of environmental impacts. To overcome this limitation and for the first time, we assessed the productivity growth of a sample of Spanish WWTPs, while also accounting for the emission of greenhouse gases and sludge production. The Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (MLPI) and its…
The integration of quality and safety concerns in the wine industry: the role of third-party voluntary certifications
2016
Abstract Over the past few years, public attention has focused on the quality and safety control, traceability, and environmental issues surrounding food products. Several mandatory public standards and private voluntary schemes worldwide have been developed to address these concerns. Using survey data, this paper analyses the key factors affecting the adoption of voluntary quality standards in the wine industry and the existence of a relationship between the adoption of voluntary quality standards and economic performance, measured in terms of labour productivity and marketing behaviour. The survey involved 89 cellars, of which 68 were non-certified and 21 had one or more food quality cert…
Age and productivity as determinants of firm survival over the industry life cycle
2017
AbstractThis paper contributes to fill the gap between the literature on the determinants of firm survival and the empirical works on the industry life cycle (ILC). Using a representative sample of Spanish firms with 10 or more employees over the period 1993–2009, the role played by firm age and productivity in firm survival is empirically analysed across three stages of the life cycle of forty-seven 3-digit manufacturing sectors. In the ‘early’ stage of the ILC, firm age is negatively correlated with hazard rates while firm productivity is not. Firm productivity is associated with lower hazard in the ‘mature’ stage of the ILC, when competition is primarily efficiency-driven, while firm age…
What Explains the Long-term Evolution of Regional Income Inequality in Spain?
2018
This chapter analyses the proximate causes of territorial inequality. To do this per-capita income inequality is broken down into elements related to differences in regional labour markets and elements linked to the presence of differences in labour productivity between regions. Then the factors that determine these differences in productivity are examined by carrying out a number of quantitative exercises to see whether or not they are in some way connected to the territories’ different production structures or whether they are due to the different levels of productivity registered by each sector on a regional scale. This set of exercises shows which of the potential explanatory factors wa…
New perspectives on old inequalities: Italy’s north–south divide
2020
Italy’s regional inequalities are more substantial and persistent than any other European country. They pertain to fundamental economic indicators (income, productivity, employment) and to many relevant features of the socio-institutional environment (the quality of institutions, education attainments, government and bureaucratic efficiency, etc.). The 2008–13 crisis further exacerbated divergences, with a collapse of capital accumulation and unwelcome demographic shocks (brain drains, migrations, etc.). This paper contributes to this rich literature with a specific focus on the increase of ‘within-south inequalities’ and investigates some socioeconomic determinants and processes that can e…
The Role of the Exchange Rate Regime in the Process of Real and Nominal Convergence
2013
During the last decade, economists have intensively searched for evidence on the importance of the Balassa-Samuelson (B-S) hypothesis in explaining nominal convergence. One general result is that B-S can at best explain only part of the excess inflation observed in the European catching-up countries, which suggests that other factors may be at play. In these and related studies, however, the potential role of the exchange rate regime in affecting price convergence in Europe has been overlooked. In this respect, we claim that the choice of the exchange rate regime has decisively affected the path of nominal convergence. To show this, we first model the (endogenous) choice of the exchange rat…