Search results for "Productivity."
showing 10 items of 557 documents
Foreign Direct Investment Spillovers: Evidence from the British Retail Sector
2011
This paper discusses the impact of foreign-ownership presence on the productivity performance of British-owned domestic retailers. In particular, we analyse the existence of productivity spillovers, in the form of knowledge transfer, by using establishment-level data from the Annual Respondents Database over the period 1997–2003. The results confirm the presence of such spillovers and highlight their positive and significant impact on the productivity of domestic firms, although these spillovers are mostly confined to the region in which foreign subsidiaries locate. There is also evidence that the productivity benefit from regional foreign direct investment spillovers increases with the abs…
Do robots complement or substitute for older workers?
2021
Abstract The impact of robotization on labor market outcomes has been recently empirically investigated along several directions, including employment, wages and labor productivity. This work contributes to this literature by looking for heterogeneous effects of robots on the workforce, analyzed by age cohorts. Relying on a panel of data from IFR (2019) and EU KLEMS (2009) over the years 1994–2005, we find consistent evidence of higher complementarity between robots and older workers (hours worked by employees aged 50 and over), and a greater substitutability among robots and younger cohorts of the labor market. These findings are robust to age group disaggregation and specific capital pric…
Productivity Polarization and Sectoral Dynamics in European Regions
2007
Abstract We show that the distribution dynamics of productivity in European regions displays polarization with a nonlinear growth path. We investigate the factors explaining this behavior focusing in particular on sectoral composition. The β -convegence analysis reveals that initial shares of Manufacturing and Other Market Services have a nonlinear impact on growth, while spatial effects are not statistically significant. By decomposing the dynamics of aggregate productivity in terms of sectoral dynamics, we show that productivity in Manufacturing, Non Market Services, and Other Market Services does not converge, for the complex interaction of technological spillovers and specialization eff…
Investment–productivity dynamics and distribution dynamics in a multisector economy: some theory and an application to Italian regions
2003
Abstract In this paper, we study the investment–productivity dynamics in the Framework Space, presented by Bohm and Punzo [Cycles, Growth and Structural Change, Routledge, London (2001) 47], as the distribution dynamics of the production sectors of an economy. We apply such theoretical framework to data from Italian regions to identify differences in sectoral behaviors both within and across regions. Our main findings are: sectors within a region generally follow different regime dynamics; Southern Italian regions are generally characterized by higher degrees of heterogeneity in sectoral growth behaviors and of regime instability. Also, we find support to the hypothesis of a positive relati…
An intertemporal approach to measuring environmental performance with directional distance functions: Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union
2014
Abstract The impact of economic activity on the environment is a matter of growing concern for firm managers, policymakers, researchers and society as a whole. Building on previous work by Kortelainen (2008) [Dynamic environmental performance analysis: A Malmquist index approach. Ecological Economics 64, 701–715], we contribute an approach to assessing intertemporal environmental performance at the level of the management of specific pollutants, as the result of change in eco-efficiency and environmental technical change, which identify catching-up with best available environmental practices and eco-innovation, respectively. In doing so, we use Data Envelopment Analysis techniques, directio…
Time allocation during Higher education : a study of Brazilian, French and Spanish students
1995
International audience; The results we present enable us to highlight common features and disparities in the way students from the three countries organize their time. While the lecture attendance time varies little from one country to another, it is different for other elements of time use. The Spaniards in particular seem to spend more time on personal work and the Brazilians more often have paid employment. The initial comparison should however be regarded as provisional in that no systematic correlation was made with educational policies in each country. Certainly, the lack of grants system in Brazil is linked to the significant amount of available time spent on salaried work but it wou…
Institutions and geography: Empirical test of spatial growth models for European regions
2010
Abstract This article provides an empirical assessment of the growth experiences of European regions, during the period 1991–2004, by taking into account the spatial effects due to both institutions and geography. These effects have been modelled by means of specific controls and by using a non-conventional spatial weight matrix. Results favour a model dealing with substantive spatial externalities. Within this framework, the country-specific institutions are strongly and positively related to the regional productivity's growth rate. In addition, the geo-institutional proximity increases the spatial dependence of the regional output per worker and raises the speed of convergence. By contras…
An empirical test of marginal productivity theory
2014
We explore an hitherto unused approach to testing marginal productivity theory. Our method rests on the simple idea that, under the assumption of a linear homogeneous production function, residual profits are informative about the discrepancies between factor payments and marginal products. Our empirical application using data on manufacturing plants in Chile suggest moderate deviations from marginal productivity theory which depend on firm size.
Institutions and Rural Stagnation in Eastern Indonesia
2018
This article addresses why agricultural productivity is still very low in peripheral parts of eastern Indonesia. The paper identifies rules and norms underpinning traditionalism. It further addresses how increased land-use efficiency can be supported while maintaining communal land ownership. Information collected from in-depth interviews was analysed based on new institutional economics (NIE) theory. I argue that the government, adat leaders, the Catholic Church, leading businesses, and internationally funded NGOs are organisations contributing to the status quo. Policy recommendations include awareness among international donors of what NGOs really do. Civil society organisations could co…
El valor de la Fisiocracia en su propio tiempo: un análisis crítico
2009
The value of the physiocratic doctrine is examined with an historical-analytical approach that takes into account both the French reality of the mid 18th century and the internal consideration of the doctrine. Starting from the overwhelming opposition of the French contemporaries, the three areas of the phyisiocrats’ system are critically reviewed: the philosophical-political framework, the theoretical economic analysis and the main maxims of the economic government. We conclude that Physiocracy, together with presenting some analytical advances, diagnosed the French economy inadequately, incurred in outstanding economic errors and proposed, within the political framework of severe “legal d…